To be honest, I'm scared to death of rollercoaster rides.

“To be honest, I’m scared to death of rollercoaster rides.” So confessed Liam Neeson, the actor whose voice has thundered across the screens of the modern age. These words, though humble and simple, conceal within them a profound and timeless truth. For what is a rollercoaster but a symbol of life itself—its climbs of ambition, its plunges of despair, its dizzying turns of fate? And what is fear but the honest recognition that to be alive is to surrender to motion we cannot control? In Neeson’s confession, there is not weakness, but wisdom: the courage to name fear and still continue the ride.

In the manner of the ancients, one might say that this fear is not merely of the metal and the height, but of the surrender that such rides demand. For the rollercoaster strips away the illusion of mastery. Once the bar locks and the wheels begin to move, no amount of strength or skill can alter the course. This is the terror that lives in every soul—the realization that much of life is not ours to command. Yet this is also the beginning of faith: to acknowledge the fear, yet stay seated, to feel the rush of uncertainty and still hold fast. Thus, Neeson’s words become a parable of human vulnerability and quiet bravery.

Even the greatest among mortals have trembled before the uncontrollable. The mighty Alexander the Great, conqueror of the known world, was said to have wept because there were no more lands to conquer—yet what he feared most was the loss of control over his own destiny. When his empire began to fracture, he found himself, like every man, a passenger on the rollercoaster of life, unable to halt its descent. His story, like Neeson’s modest admission, teaches us that fear does not spare the powerful. The lesson is not to rid ourselves of fear, but to ride with it—to learn that courage is not the absence of trembling, but the act of remaining in motion despite it.

The fear of rollercoasters can also be seen as a mirror to the fear of emotional exposure, of the rise and fall of love, grief, and longing. Neeson himself, who has known both fame and loss, speaks these words from a place of sincerity, not jest. Perhaps in his heart, the ride represents all that cannot be predicted—the losses that come too swiftly, the joys that vanish too soon. Life, like the rollercoaster, does not ask our permission to begin or to drop. It only asks whether we will ride it with our eyes open or closed, screaming in terror or laughing through the wind.

And yet, how many of us seek the illusion of safety, building quiet cages around our lives to keep the motion out? We avoid risk, love, adventure, the unknown—thinking that in stillness we will find peace. But stillness without growth is a kind of living death. The ancients would remind us that even the gods delight in the pulse of chaos, that the thunder and the wave are instruments of creation. To fear the ride is natural; to refuse it entirely is to reject the gift of being alive. For what meaning is there in a life unshaken by wonder or change?

So, the wise do not despise their fear—they listen to it, honor it, and then proceed. They fasten their seatbelts, not to avoid danger, but to remain steady through its course. They understand that life’s greatest heights are reached only by enduring its drops. Neeson’s honesty reminds us that fear does not disqualify us from bravery; it is, in truth, the proof of it. The one who claims no fear has not yet lived deeply enough to be shaken.

Therefore, my child, take this lesson to heart: Do not be ashamed of your fears. Name them, as Neeson did, and face them with humility. Whether your rollercoaster is love, ambition, loss, or change, let it move you. Grip the bar, breathe through the climb, and scream if you must—but do not step away from the line. For though fear rides with you, so too does joy, and at the end of the track, when the wheels slow and the heart stills, you will step out trembling—but alive, awake, and grateful for the wild and fleeting ride that was your life.