There’s a particular kind of thrill that only fear can give you—the pure, electric jolt that cuts through everything else and reminds you you’re alive. It’s not the anxious kind that creeps in during the 9-to-5 grind. It’s ancient. Primal. The kind that once kept our ancestors alive when the dark was full of eyes. In today’s cushioned world, that fear is rare. But I go looking for it. Not because I want to be scared, but because I want to feel where the edges are.
For some of us, fear is addictive. That delicious, squirming feeling in your gut. Heart pounding, lungs tight, eyes wide, every sense sharpened by adrenaline and cortisol. The possibilities—bodily harm, disaster, death—stretch out in front of you. And yet, you keep going. Because that edge is where life becomes electric.
I chase fear. I hunt it down. Whether it’s walking through alleyways at night, jumping off buildings, plummeting from the sky strapped to a parachute, or racing at 100 mph with death one bad decision away—I seek it out. Why? Because fear is a mirror. It shows you who you are and resets the limits you thought were fixed. When you confront fear—and beat it—you get a rush no drug can match. After a race, sometimes I’m high on life, buzzing with joy and fire. It’s not just adrenaline. It’s survival.
My biggest fear? Sharks. And in 2027, when I turn 60, I’m going face to face with Great Whites in Mexico, cage diving with my daughter. It will be one of the most important moments of my life. I already feel the ice in my veins just thinking about it—and I can’t wait.
But fear hasn’t always been on my terms.
Years ago, in London, after a long night at the rugby club, I was wandering home through unfamiliar streets. I stopped at a skip, desperate for a piss. That’s when I heard the voice. A massive, shirtless man with a shaved head sat in a first-floor window above me, mumbling to himself. When he spotted me, he roared and disappeared from view. Seconds later, he exploded through his front door wielding a baseball bat, charging straight at me like a freight train. I barely had time to zip up before I was sprinting for my life. He chased me a full block—ten paces behind me, maybe less. I ran like I never had before. When I finally lost him, the mix of relief, fear, and euphoria hit like a bomb. My whole body shook. It was terrifying. And exhilarating.
I returned to that street the next day. He was there again, muttering to himself. I later heard there’d been a murder nearby. I don’t know if it was him, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
In Auckland, years earlier, I came face to face with something equally unsettling. Late one night, heading to my car in a shadowy multi-storey car park, I turned a stairwell corner and found a man just sitting there, halfway up the flight. Motionless. Silent. Waiting. For what? No one knows. He looked me dead in the eye, then slowly shifted aside to let me pass. My whole body was humming, like a wire pulled too tight. I climbed the rest of the way with my ears straining, every step echoing, waiting for him to follow. He never did. But my heart didn’t stop pounding until I was in my car, doors locked, letting out a whoop like I’d won a war.
More recently, I was walking home through a park at 1:15 a.m. after the last train. It’s pitch dark, just a handful of lights. Halfway through, I spotted two teenagers on a bench. One of them, a heavy-set lad, fell silent as I passed. Just as I walked by, I heard him say, “Not this one.” Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was something. But fear had already flared in my chest.
The thing I’ve learned about moments like these: fear is a language, and your body speaks it before your brain catches up. Your posture, your walk, your eyes—they say more than your words ever could. Show fear, and you might invite danger. But show too much defiance, and you risk provoking it. So I keep my shoulders back, my head high, my stride steady. I make brief eye contact—just enough to say “I see you,” but not enough to challenge. That tightrope walk is its own form of dance.
But no moment tested me like the man in the mask.
One night, walking home from the football club around 11 p.m., I found myself alone on a long, empty road. No people. No cars. Until one slowly pulled up ahead of me and stopped. As I approached, every hair on my neck stood up. I sensed something wrong. My peripheral vision confirmed it: the driver, turned fully toward me, was wearing a white hockey mask—the same as the killer from Friday the 13th. He didn’t move. Just stared.
My mind split. One half raged—Who does this freak think he is, trying to scare me? The other half whispered—Don’t react. Don’t show fear. Just keep walking. That voice won. I stayed calm, turned into a stranger’s driveway, and disappeared around the side of their house. The sensor light clicked on. He saw me. I waited. He waited. Five minutes passed before he finally drove off, in the same direction I’d been heading. I turned back and called a cab.
That was fear. Raw. Real. And it was delicious.
Not all fear comes from strangers in the dark. Some comes from the unknown.
In another story from Willerton’s World, ‘Hitchhiking and other life lessons’ I recount hitchhiking through New Zealand. I was picked up by a man in the grip of a manic episode— chattering some weird and disgusting things, shifting moods, and slowing at turn offs on a remote road and scrabbling under his dash for something. I sat there, trapped in the passenger seat, calculating my options. Every minute felt like a gamble. He could have snapped, veered off the road, or worse. I played it calm. Kind. Non-threatening. Eventually, I got out, heart racing, wondering just how close I’d come to not making it out.
On the Camino de Santiago, I encountered something… primal. In Casper and Other Ghosts, I tell the story of being ambushed—stalked, maybe—by some kind of predator in the Spanish wilderness. I never saw what it was. But I felt it. Heard it. A presence moving out of sight which made a sudden very loud noise up and behind me, but close. I was walking alone, and the world felt charged—like something was hunting me. Fear filled every breath as I turned and stared it down. Every moment slowed down and I entered a different world that day. But I survived. And something about surviving that unknown made me stronger.
The older we get, the more we shrink away from fear. We nest in comfort. Our worlds contract. We tell ourselves it’s wisdom, caution, common sense. But it’s also surrender. I see people in their 30s and 40s already retreating from the unknown, even though they were bold once. Fear has its place. It keeps us alive. But it also reminds us that we are alive.
Maybe one day I’ll stop chasing fear. Maybe I won’t need that buzz anymore, or maybe my body just won’t cope with it the same way. But for now, I still crave those moments where the world sharpens, and everything feels real—where instinct takes over and the noise of everyday life fades into the background. Fear reminds me I’m alive. It keeps the edges of my world from going dull. And as long as I’ve got the legs to run, the nerve to walk into the dark, and a heartbeat that still races when the stakes are high, fear isn’t something to avoid. It’s something to dance with. And I’ve still got a few songs left in me.
#ChasingFear, #AdrenalineJunkie, #FearAndSurvival, #FaceYourFears, #LivingOnTheEdge,
WILLERTONS WORLD 