Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid!

[OpenMind5]

I have grown to know alot of you very well, but i want to know more...yes...your fears...

ARe you scared of the dark? Or maybe what lerks in it?

 

I have developed this idea/theory/what-cha-ma-call-it...

* I have realised that all fears deal with pain. Usaully linked to the idea of pain or the idea or the ulimate pain of death.

 

To help my idea along..i wanted some opion and examples that support or not support me...and to see if we can find a pattern here...

 

Op5

[C1ay]

Maybe but....I have found as the years go by that things I used to be scared of because of pain, scare me no longer. I have found that pain is something you get used to. Now i do many things that I used to avoid even though they hurt. The pain is uncomfortable but not as much as it used to be.

[OpenMind5]

Somthign i have noticed also, pain is somthing that we as humans grow us to. Old fears of our childhood seem almost funny. But I am not saying that fears of pain cannot be overcome...simply that most fears, if not all, are based on that elment of pain.

 

Op5

[Turtle]

Since you can die a painless death, you can fear death without fearing pain. I don't fear death or pain; I fear the unknown. The unknown of life, not death. I add that because I think the real fear most people say is a fear of death, is really a fear of the unknown; they don't know what happens when they die.

 

___Frankly, I found it inefficient to think about what happens after I die; que sera sera.:hyper:

[OpenMind5]

I understand your logic, but at the same time, can't you say people what "hides in the the unknown." To say you fear teh unkown is very general. But its what lurks in the shadows of the unknown that you are scared of. Which could be linked to pain.

 

Op5

[Queso]

i fear death. yeah. i fear the dark too. my imagination has always been against me in the dark. a lot of people say i'm afraid of everything, i'm just careful. i don't fear the unknown, in fact i love it. whatever it is, wherever, whenever. just as long as i have a flashlight ;]

alzeimers is pretty scary too.

it's like this giant triangle.

you're born, you know nothing, you learn, you live, you then start to forget, then you die.

born in a hospital, dead in a hospital.

i feel bad for the ones who are born and who died in the exact same hospital. i'm sure someones life has cycled through the same room too...

i'm getting off topic.

i was born really paranoid, thus dawned upon me cautism(probably made that up, just saying i'm cautios)

oh, and don't forget...spiders. i just can't stand the way they crawl and lurk in the shadows.

[OpenMind5]

First let me say Thank You Orbsycli for posting

 

I must say i was scared of many of the asme things you were. But the more time i spent reflecting on my fears, and developing my ideas, i became less afraid. (Thats just me)

 

Thank you again.

For some people its hard to post your fears....

 

Op5

[pgrmdave]

I think that there are two basic fears - fear of pain, and fear of the unknown. Pain tell us when we are doing something dangerous, or life-threatening. Pain is an evolutionary benefit - it makes us stop doing dangerous things, fear of pain is even better - it keeps us from repeating mistakes. Fear of the unknown stops us from leaping before we look.

[OpenMind5]

But can't you also say that the idea of pain "stops you from leaping?"

You may not know where that rabit hole goes, but when you get there...will it hurt?

 

Op5

[Queso]

The unknown makes us hesitant though, no matter what. there's always that thought of what-if...

[OpenMind5]

So is it the what if that casues the fear?

[Queso]

i'm afraid of airplanes. i suck it up and get on them, but the thought of being in a metal object flying miles and miles above the ground at speeds over 5x what i can max out in my POS 4 cylender car blows my mind.

[Queso]

this brings up another point, facing your fears. i get a kick out of that stuff.

[Turtle]

I think it is the 'what if'. The more teriible what ifs I learn or experience the more afraider I get; what if it happens again is a biggy too.

 

I don't go with the facing fears thing; I think it's masochistic sorta somehow maybe. Well, of course my fears are real. I just minimalize my exposure to fearfull situations as much as possible.

___Also, I draw a distinction between being startled & being afraid. The former is an animal response & the latter an intellectual/mind/... response.:hyper:

[Buffy]

I've been into "facing fears", but I've always wondered whether or not it was just my adrenaline addiction. I've always been afraid of heights and deep water, but when I was a kid I spent a lot of time surfing, racing 15 foot sloops in the Pacific Ocean, and diving fearlessly off the top of the Cornices at Mammoth and Squaw Valley. I don't do any of this anymore (still ski, but no cliff diving!), I've still got my fears but now I *know* what to expect, having been thrown overboard in the middle of the ocean and tumbling head over heals for 200 yards through snow into a very large and hard boulder. I've done it, have respect for it, could do it any time cuz I know what happens now, still actually *feel* the fear when I get close to doing it, but it doesn't *control* me anymore, and I don't do them simply because I don't like the pain that goes along with em. Been dere done dat.

 

Other things have transmogrified. I used to have horrible stage fright, but now there's nothing more fun than getting up in front of a big crowd and entertaining them.

 

Courage is not the lack of fear, its the overcoming the fear and acting inspite of it,

Buffy

[GAHD]

I fear things I can't controll. Broad subject I know, but it's the only thing I can truely say makes me afraid.

I don't fear the unknown because i simply don't know about it. One it becomes possible, IE once the roads ice-over I get a little afraid; icy roads and drivers used to summer conditions, (driving too fast, or overestimating their stopping distance) is a bad combination.

[OpenMind5]

The only thing that i can say i truly fear is "nothing." Not as in i have no fears, but nothing as in pure, true darkness, no sound, no anything.

 

Op5