This is an opinion column.

I think, sometimes, that I got into the business of newspapers because of Virginia O’Hanlon, that little girl who wrote to The New York Sun, asking the paper, the trusted paper, to tell her if Santa Claus was indeed real.

My mother quoted Francis Pharcellus Church’s editorial reply to Virginia often, around Christmas, as if it were poetry, or philosophy, as if the words made manifest a world she wanted to live in, and to lean on.

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.”

I came to agree with my mom, that faith in the goodness of people is the magic that keeps the world from ruin, that guards trust in institutions and ideals – like The Sun in 1897, like science or education or democracy or a free press that strives for accuracy and with ethical standards today – allows us to pursue that dream together.

I’ve pondered in the past how Francis Church might answer Virginia today. I have wondered – and written before, in an era that seems unlike this one – what the reply might be if Virginia had written a Halloween letter instead.

I update it for our age today:

Dear Editor,

I am 8 years old.

My friends tell me there is no such thing as ghosts or witches or werewolves, but I am scared.

Please tell me the truth; are monsters real?

Yours truly,

Virginia

—

Dearest Virginia,

I would like to tell you that your friends are wrong, that monsters are but dust bunnies under the bed.

But it’s not true. Monsters are real.

They are the darkest thoughts inside your head, the ones that tell you to fear the worst, to disbelieve the magic of Santa Claus or the goodness of people. They are self doubt and blind arrogance and our growing tendency to demonize those who disagree.

They are fights over religion and banishment of those who dare to be somehow different.

The ghouls are troubled minds and high-capacity magazines in a world that troubles the mind, and thus makes people clamor for more high-capacity magazines.  Our vampires suck the will from us, so we cannot even agree that we need solutions.

Frankenstein’s monsters are bombs that kill innocent people, and war itself, which is the most monstrous of all.

Beware, Virginia, for the most frightening monsters don’t look scary at all.

They are the algorithms that keep us from sharing factual news on apps that spread anger like a disease and lies faster than truths, on social channels that broke the guardrails on our information superhighway ecosystems, and – in the name of information democratization – not only threaten democracies across the world but and make it near impossible to hold unifying conversations.

Oh, there are monsters, as we rush toward the unknowns of artificial intelligence in a world where information is controlled and distributed by tech billionaires.

But do not despair, Virginia. There have always been monsters. Which is why we needed Santa Claus. Which is why we need light. Which is why we need to remember.

Because monsters you can only imagine are far more frightening than those you can see.

It may be scary, Virginia. You may think it too frightening to bear. But it is not.

That reply to Virginia would perhaps end there. But the conversation should continue.

I listened this week to Maria Ressa, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an embattled Filipino journalist. She spoke of those monsters, but not in those terms.

But then she spoke of fear, whether self doubt or the worst thing you can imagine.

I can’t help but think it is the fire that holds all these monsters at bay.

“You have to take whatever it is you are most afraid of and embrace it,” she said. “Because when you embrace your fear, whatever that is, you touch it … you rob it of its sting. Then your brain can figure out what you can do.”

It’s ok to be afraid of monsters. Whatever they might be. But don’t be too afraid to see them, to touch them. To rob them of their sting.

—

Maria Ressa said another thing she has learned from her research. Something about us. Something about social media. Something I need to remember.

“Inspiration,” she said, “spreads as fast as anger.”

John Archibald is a two-time Pulitzer winner at Al.com.