What are you afraid of?
Jun 9, 09:09 PM
“Everything you do is triggered by an emotion of either desire or fear.” – Brian Tracy
Fear. A movie staring Reese Whitherspoon and Mark Whalberg. But also an emotion that impacts our lives daily. From the fear of electrocution stopping you from putting your knife into the toaster in the morning to get the crumpets that are stuck, to the fear of being flashed by a multi-nova that stops you from speeding (in the areas where you know they will be anyway) to the fear of gladwrap for no particular reason (I know some weird people). Fear not only impacts our lives, in a very real sense, it moulds and controls them.
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.” - H.P. Lovecraft.
In its simplest form, self-preservation is the purpose of fear. Logic is the casualty. Somewhere along the way this emotion gets tied up in so many different thought processes that major conflicts arise and the results are often unexplainable. Take my mate Dave’s fear of aliens for example. Now as a firm believer in alien life this fear doesn’t seem too illogical to me. However Dave, unlike me, is a religious man and is of the belief that even if there are aliens in the universe they will never become known to us and will never impact our lives. Yet due to movies, stories and a whole variety of other stimulants impacting his mental state, he continues to be seriously freaked out by them.
“I went to the toilet last night in the dark and was afraid of aliens.” – Dave
‘Well aliens ARE creepy!’ you might say. Touché. However, the fact that there hasn’t been any real scientific proof that they exist (released to the public anyway) makes me question: What are you basing that statement on? As far as we know, they are just a figment of our imagination. We created the IDEA of aliens and now we are suddenly scared of our own thoughts.
So what is fear then? A chemical reaction to certain physical, visual, audio stimulants which result in a sense of uneasiness and sometimes that unwavering sense of “RUN!!”. Right. But to get a better understanding fear has to be broken into two broad categories: Fear of the known and fear of the unknown.
Fear of the known results in normal useful reactions. If you see a drugged-up hippy waving a gun, talking about the corruption of the world and you realise you are wearing an “I love NY” shirt and an American flag baseball cap, then the fear of imminent death is normal and useful (useful in that, you will have learnt an important lesson in fashion sense). These are the fears that DON’T keep you awake at night (unless you are extremely paranoid). They are reactions to real situations; you are scared because you are aware of the probable and possible negative outcomes.
“Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.” -German Proverb
Fear of the unknown is totally different and is the most destructive type of fear. This is the “What if?” phobia. Where what we fear is: not knowing. Everyone has forgone an opportunity in their life based on the fear of “What if?” ‘What if they don’t like me?’, ‘What if I’m no good?’, ‘What if it’s the wrong decision’, ‘What if someone finds the body?’, ‘What if the cops find out?’ Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. We fear what we don’t understand because it’s something we can’t control. Our whole society is built around control. We try to control nature; we try to control each other. We try, but we always fail because we don’t and can’t know everything and thus we end up fearing the earth’s power and fearing our neighbours.
“Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it.” – Lt. John B. Putnam Jr.
I guess the most defining aspect of fear is not what you fear, but how you deal with it. Fear of the unknown can drive one man to discover the world and another to never leave his home. To face one’s fear is to look inside yourself and know who you really are. I’m not saying we should face all of our fears, just the ones that are purely a creation of our own minds. My fear of being exposed to nuclear radiation: quite rational. My fear of making a move on a girl: ridiculous. One step into radiation leak can result in death (or superhuman strength and abilities), one kiss can make the world fade away and take all your fears with it. It’s interesting though, that one fear can be more powerful than all others, one fear to rule them all….. and in the darkness bind them. That’s the fear of regret. Knowing you missed an opportunity because of fear is like realising you’ve thrown an important document in the bin and the rubbish collection day was yesterday. You will never get it back and you’ll be kicking yourself for doing it. Fear and regret go hand in hand, to have no fear is to have no regrets.
“Never fear shadows…. that always means there is a light shining somewhere” - Jonathon Santos
Fear can save your life, but it can also destroy your dreams. Now I could keep writing on this, there is so much more that can be said. But it appears I might have to actually do some work today.
Now THAT’s a scary thought.
Filed under: Ramblings