1. a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.
2. a specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling: an abnormal fear of heights.
3. concern or anxiety; solicitude: a fear for someone's safety.
4. reverential awe, esp. toward God.
Fear is the primary inhibitor of the expansion or development of the ideal.
It’s what gets in our way. So, we’re constantly fighting it. So constantly, in fact, that we can forget we’re doing it and be completely stunned when we find ourselves exhausted enough to forget our own names. We don’t realize it because it never ends and can become the constant setting by which we play out all other experiences.
You could study, capitalize on your knowledge and networks, fall in love, procreate, and advance small kingdoms all within the context and motivation of your fear – fear that you will at some point die, fear that you do not meet a standard or specification, fear that you will never beat Minesweeper on intermediate, fear of a greater being or overarching system like God and country, or fear of being overcome by something smaller than you – snakes, spiders, midget clowns, failing English 101, or not being able to fry a nice, even omelet.
So do we accept and embrace it like a bunch of tools or become worn down and completely overwhelmed with our dissatisfaction? Do we spend every waking hour on a lifelong treadmill trying to conquer it?
Do we let anyone bold enough to deny all of their fears take control of us (a few names come to mind)?
None of those are any more than a response to stimuli. None of them makes good use of fear. They only leave us tired.
Like every other phenomenon or experience, fear exists so we can apply it to our goals as individuals and as community.
We use it as a measuring stick for our resilience. We can use it as a motive, as a source of empathy – fear for others’ sake. We can use it to direct attention to the things that matter most. We can use it to prevent the reoccurrence of anything negative. Doesn’t much matter, as long as we put it to use.
- R.
“Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.”
~Napoleon Bonaparte, everyone’s favorite stinky French general
“My ’fear'... is my substance, and probably the best part of me.”
~Franz Kafka, really old-school Czech author.
“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
~Edmund Burke, pretty smart British guy
“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming. “
~Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher
And in closing,
“Fear is the mother of morality.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche, ridiculously famous German-Swiss Philosopher who may or may not have actually had a mother himself
