Fear
Fear, in my opinion is the most destructive emotion
It is a disgusting feeling and if obeyed it rules over your mind body and soul
It enslaves you and makes you believe that the word courage does not even exist
It pretends to be your best friend with a whip
It coaxes you to believe that it is a rational part of you and your life and that it is Human.
As you write this you do have some fears of your own, but you do not want to think that it okay and normal to feel and accept this emotion. You want to fight it, as though you are fighting for your life. Because this is what fear does to you, it takes away your right and your real reason to live, which is happiness.
So next time when this emotion knocks on the doors of your mind and your thoughts, you know what to do.
Open it, look at your visitor in the eye and then just slam the door.
It is a disgusting feeling and if obeyed it rules over your mind body and soul
It enslaves you and makes you believe that the word courage does not even exist
It pretends to be your best friend with a whip
It coaxes you to believe that it is a rational part of you and your life and that it is Human.
As you write this you do have some fears of your own, but you do not want to think that it okay and normal to feel and accept this emotion. You want to fight it, as though you are fighting for your life. Because this is what fear does to you, it takes away your right and your real reason to live, which is happiness.
So next time when this emotion knocks on the doors of your mind and your thoughts, you know what to do.
Open it, look at your visitor in the eye and then just slam the door.
posted by Rachana at 9:37 am
12 Comments:
The difficulty resides in the fact, that he just keeps on knocking.
Well, then just keep on slamming the door.
We create this feeling somehow within us, for instance our fear of failure or of loosing someone, these situations have not taken place and may not even occur but we already concern ourselves to death with them.
It is this irrational fear we need to destroy, which could bring about a more lasting solution.
I do not feel that fear is something one should necessarily destroy. By keeping on slamming the door, I am giving into its knocking. I will experience fear over and over again, so rather than eradicating or ignoring it(or trying to) I feel that embracing it should be the first step into resolving the issue. It is in this embrace combined with reason where one will find the answer methinks.
I view my traits and their apparent manifestations into my life as cues, which may sometimes lead to neurotic tendencies but which will also help me view things from different, unusual perspectives. This capacity make me noteworthy as an individual.
Fear, even irrational fear, is not always the enemy. Not acknowledging signs from the mind may be the thing that causes the most damage in the long run.
I do agree with you. When I said look at it in the eye, I meant that you first need to acknowledge it, know it for what it is and then take steps to eradicate it or get rid of it. Reason does play an important role here.
It is reason that will assist in distinguishing irrational fear from the one that is "valid", for instance a loved one who has met with a car accident, here you will fear for that person's life. But, not allowing that person to drive with the fear that he will meet with an accident, that is irrational.
Even phobias for that matter which are far more complicated, since it evolves the past of an individual, childhood traumas etc. in my opinion are valid fears and require embracing, reason and understanding to finally overcome it.
The things that I mentioned in the post was to do with irrational fears.
Yes, we see eye to eye concerning the "rational fears", but I uphold the same standard for dealing with irrational ones. Irrational fears have a cause, rooted in insecurities just like rational fears, so it stands to reason that both must be dealt with in a similar fashion.
As I pointed out earlier, I view all emotions and thoughts as cues from my mind and I act accordingly.
Per example, I always do math in my head, once I figure out the solution, I keep repeating the process to myself over and over again, until I find something new that initially makes me feel inadequate. Once I find it, the repetitive process starts all over again. This is neurotic, I know it is. As I deny myself the thoughts all together, I stop doing the math but a nagging feeling occupies me still.
So I started looking deeper, what exactly causes me to do this, over and over and over and over again? The fear of inadequacy, the fear of being dumb, wrong etc. The fear that I cannot solve how much the basic price is if I have 8 pieces which cost 16 bucks(all pieces costing the same) is irrational, because I surely can. But the fear has taught me where to further enhance my own condition.
I am now at the point where I deny myself the compulsion, the neurotic tendency, but I am harnessing ways to deal with the fear.
So in short, in terms of irrational fears I "slam the door" on the compulsions stemming from them, but not the actual fear itself.
I do see what you mean when you say that irrational and rational fear stems from, or is rooted in insecurity. That is a good point. But, I am not convinced that they need to be dealt with in a similar way.
In my opinion, we could embrace and overcome rational fears. But, the irrational ones we need to understand and overcome.
You believe that irrational fear helps you to enhance your own condition, but if we look around us these fears also inhibit the growth of minds of individuals. Most of us burden our minds with things that will not & may not even happen. We live in a perpetual state of fear and hence refrain from exploring
things. In these situations we are not understanding our fears but embracing them.
I have expressed myself rather dramatically than rationally in my post. We should fight against embracing such fears. But need to "look at your visitor in the eye" that is understand it and then "slam the door" that is overcome it.
Overcoming rational fears, in my opinion, would be putting ourselves up for a state of numbness which is, in my case at least, unwanted. Rational fears are valid, they are recordings of risks that go with life and they should be treated as such. Perhaps you mean that we should grow beyond the fear itself, just embracing the notion, but I do not see how this can be done without losing a sense of genuine concern.
Yes, I have always been slightly off in how I use and treat my own shortcomings. Where others are consumed by the irrational fears I am utilizing ways to harness them in a way that will be beneficial to me in the long run, in that sense I am embracing them as part of myself. I do not believe that I am the only one capable of doing this, I may be unique as being one of the first who does. But that does not make the feat itself particularly hard or impossible for others.
There is no utilizing the irrational fear without embracing it first. Of course I am not saying that I must lose myself in the fear, but I am definitely not ruling out that dwelling in it for at least a little while can do wonders for the mind and the way it perceives life. (To read what I'm talking about, read my latest entry, the mirror experiment was a result of the irrational fear of inadequacy)
For me emotions and thoughts trigger association processes, the stuff insight is made of. It for me better to live in irrational fear for the rest of my life and being capable of working, than it would be to be a happy camper who has nothing to say. An uncanny amount of chaos in mind and heart is essential to the creative process, it is the force behind it.
I must admit enjoying the conversation though :)
Well, I am quiet enjoying this myself so let's take this forward or shall I say backward in this case.
Initially, when this conversation started, instead of using the word rational I had used the word "valid" for fears that are not irrational. I think the use of the word rational with an emotion is self contradictory. Because rational means based on reason or logic and, emotions are feelings contrasted with reason (Dictionary definitions). So, I would like to correct myself and use the word "valid" again which seems more or less apt.
When it comes to valid fears I don't think you loose the genuine concern, on the contrary the concern is much more here which is why the fear is acceptable and requires embracing, like fearing for a loved ones life who has met with an accident.
But, when it comes to irrational fears I don't think you need to embrace it to understand it. To embrace means to accept. So are you implying that we should accept things without first understanding it? If it is so then I would disagree.
As for the article I am not sure which one are referring to.
I totally agree that chaos in the mind is good for creative thinking. I am all for it. But, irrational fears go way beyond this.
We seem to have arrived at yet another crossroad of sorts(and a fairly big comment on my side). I think fears can be completely rational because they are based on thought processes, that it is eventually a feeling, does not mean that it cannot stem from reason. I reason that if I cross the streets, the possibility exists that a car will hit me. I am taking this scenario and linking it to the fear of death. Crossing the streets does then become a reasonable(founded on a plausible reasoning)representation and provoker of the fear of death I mentioned earlier.
An irrational, or unreasonable provoker like the fear of not being capable of solving 16/8 would be classified as irrational, since I can surely solve it. It seems that we are not addressing the actual fear, but the scenario.
In this regard, all fears might be rational, or reasonable in their core, but their representations, manifestations may not be. Both the fear of death and the fear of failure are perfectly logical from a biological/evolutionary point of view.
I stated nowhere that we should not understand the fear, but I feel that embracing it is my only real shot at understanding anything, this does not mean that I must lose sight of reason and clarity, but it does mean that I must "tango" with the fear. How can I understand something completely if I do not get as close as possible? I can tell that a twister is dangerous from the outside, but I can gain so much more information once I put myself in the middle of it.
I put it like this last night, since you got me thinking:
"I feel that one should embrace fears, both rational and irrational, they offer new associations which one can use to create. By dwelling into fears, perspectives as it were, one gains new insights pertaining to those fears, but possibly also beyond them. One might even find that if one produces related to those fears one will in time get rid of them. So by embracing them and working with them, rather than against them, one could possibly create more than without the fear and one might in due time harness a part of the chaos with oneself. Embracing the fear would then lead to enhancement of the individual condition. Of course, there are limitations, one must remain sober and clean of mind, not giving into to the neurotic tendencies that stem from the fear, rather, noting them and moving on. The embrace should be in the fear, not its most basic products. The neurotic tendencies may however guide you into new directions, the association process I mentioned earlier, so it's all about finding a proper balance one is personally comfortable with. Balance after all, is one of the highest obtainable goals for mankind."-An excerpt from a file I have on my computer called "random thoughts".
I was referring to the article "Perspectives...they will differ".
I believe that delving into the mind, no matter the nature thereof and the phenomena one is busy with at the time, will tell me more about my own mind in given, long term or short term. I believe that by interacting with the chaos, all of the chaos that is my mind, that is me, I can gain insights pertaining to my mind and ultimately leading to a strong grip on the chaos, making it truly mine to command. And once it is mine to command, I can produce a pure creative process, because my comprehension of the creative force is at its top.
Wow, I sure hope that all of this is still comprehensible.
So, you have proved that fear can be rational but,I am still not convinced that irrationl fears need to be embraced or that they enhance human condition.
I do think that, if we were to take any action based on an irrational fear it could lead to being dishonest or unfair most of the time. For instance, I do something that is not right, with the fear of displeasing or loosing someone. Here it is the irrational fear that I have embraced. So, I rather "slam the doors" on such fears and then take my decision. At the same time I am not sure as to how, in this scenario, working with the fear would do me any good. Because, afterall, it is a case of black and white.
I don't feel we need to embrace and dwell upon every thought that enters our mind. More a process of filtering is needed, some thoughts require more attention, some less and others well, none at all. The key is to know all this in a short span of time because our minds are continuously bombarded with ideas, notions etc. It is an individual, who needs to decide which of his thoughts require dwelling and, which do not, to make him more efficient.
"Tango with the fear" I like the sound of it. A bit of romance there, of words of course :)
I think we might actually agree, but that you are not understanding properly what I am trying to say.
You take embrace to mean adhere to the fear, which is not the same. What I mean by the word "embrace" is one of the many definitions offered by Wordnet "include in scope; include as part of something broader". By taking the fear, any fear, and embracing it, I automatically end up gaining a bigger view of the panorama that is my mind. The meaning of embrace you might be talking about is offered also by Wordnet, "espouse" which would mean "adopt: choose and follow".
As you can probably see, these are two very different things.
I do not believe I have ever consciously experienced a thought unworthy of attention. After all, I find that when a thought becomes conscious it has already been filtered by the unconscious part of my mind, I view that part of my mind as the absolute authority on what I am allowed and not allowed to record consciously.
I tango with the fear no differently, than I am now in the process of tangoing with you. Balanced, clearheaded, and openminded.
I am not sure what is lacking here, my inability to understand you or, to express my point.
According to the Oxford dictionary as well as dictionary.com, the ones I referred to, embrace among other definitions means to "accept willingly". It is based on this definition that I opposed the idea of embracing irrational fear.
I do understand now, what you meant by the term embrace that is "include in scope; include as part of something broader".
This does simplify and clarify the discussion to an extent.
Let me try and explain as to what I understand of irrational fears.
According to me, it is a kind of fear wherein an individual to avoid a particular situation (which may, may not occur) makes a choice which, he would not have made in the absence of the fear. This could work against him or for him. But, if it does work for him then it would be more of a fluke, a gamble.
We can embrace this fear that is include it as a part of something broader, and enhance our mind which probably would work well for something like a math problem.
But, I do not see how it will assist us in dealing with more crucial situations wherein, we cannot let these fears influence our decisions.
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