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Fear is often used to compel people to do things they otherwise wouldn't do and sometimes to do things they never thought they could.
Fear has been used to help keep the masses "in line", such as the fear of God. I've often thought the genius of Emperor Constantine in switching to Christianity was he could instill the fear of God into his soldiers hundreds of miles away. The Emperor wasn't watching them but God was.
Of all the reasons humans have to be fearful, the most baffling to me is irrational fear. The result of reacting to that fear can be surrendering your free will to follow someone who vows to protect you.
What I don't understand is why people don't stop and ask themselves if the fear is real or imagined. Most do but an awful lot don't.
Any thoughts?
Arguably, fear is the most powerful and destructive human emotion of all. As you say, it causes people to do things they know aren't right, can keep people living in misery when they need to get out of a situation, causes anxiety, depression, hopelessness. From where I'm sitting it's the meth of emotions. Not even anger comes close. And anger is bad.
What may be most compelling about fear is that it's an unknown. That snake MAY bite me. That unlocked door MAY allow a criminal to enter my home. That storm heading my way MAY cause a tree to fall on my house.
As a child, these can be real fears and if we don't have parents there to soothe those fears, we, as children, may go into an uncontrollable panic.
But by the time we reach adulthood, we would hopefully have had adults in our lives who taught us what we should actually fear and what we should maybe keep a watchful eye on.
Where do you get this idea from? And what do SJW have to do with this topic? Maybe we should discuss obsession.
I'm sure Calvert Hall is trying to imply that if one lives within 100 miles of a Black or Latino person, then their lives are in danger. See, irrational fear.
No one (including people of color) wants to live in bad neighborhoods. However, the mere presence of a person of color doesn't indicate danger.
It's also like the preppers who are convinced that people from urban areas are all going to road trip up to Wyoming, North Dakota, or whatever rural areas they are hiding in should there be a major disaster.
I live with fear everyday. I KNOW most of my fears are irrational. I TRY very hard not to let my fears get the best of me but I admit that sometimes they do.
My husband LOVES to sail. He has a sailboat and I was his first mate. But, for some strange reason, I started to develop an irrational fear whenever the boat would keel over just a bit. I can swim-I'm actually a fairly good swimmer. And we sail in a lake where the shore is never out of sight. So, where did this fear come from? I haven't a clue-but I would have panic attacks on the boat-so much so that the boat is now for sail...er...sale.
I am afraid of flying, but every year, Hubby & I go to Puerto Rico. He holds my hand when we take off (when my fear is the greatest). I either watch t.v. or listen to music to distract me. I swallow my fear as I get onto a plane.
My biggest fear is losing my husband. An irrational fear? Probably not. He is much older than I am and the odds of me losing him increases with each year. So, I embrace what I have while I have it.
Cat
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