Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop.

The metaphor casts fear as a photographic darkroom: a place where images are processed out of sight, shaped by chemicals and conditions rather than by direct observation. In fear’s “darkroom,” the mind develops “negatives”—distorted, pessimistic impressions that can feel vivid and real despite being produced in obscurity. The line suggests that fear is not merely a response to danger but a generative environment that manufactures worst-case narratives, turning uncertainty into seemingly concrete evidence. Implicitly, it argues for bringing anxieties into the light—testing them against reality—so that imagined negatives do not harden into convictions that govern action.