Is the Only Thing to Fear Is "Fear, Itself"?

One of America's Presidents encouraged our country at the beginning of the Great Depression with the statement; the "only thing to fear is fear itself". But, is the only thing to fear is" fear, itself"?I heard today that when one has "lost everything", then fear dissolves, because you have nothing to loose. The presumption was that one only fears the loss of the material. This is true for some, but it is too broad a generalization.

Fear can be ingrained in response to pain. One can fear the dentist or the doctor because of a painful experience or their high sensitivity to physical pain. Or one can fear the emotional pain of loving again after a painful loss. So, fear is a human response to stimuli, whether present situations or past experiences.

Fear can be bred, when one experiences the unexpected. Trust is the opposite of fear, in this regard. Rules of behavior, written or unwritten code of social "norms" are values that protect us from "fear of the unexpected". These "norms" are built on trust and are the basis of human relationships.

Today's "talk" posed courage as the opposite of fear. This is true, as courage is about fearlessness, but courage that is baseless irrationality, which disregards past experience, one's personal propensity to pain, whether physical or emotional, or the trustworthiness of one's present community, are all rational considerations in evaluating whether fear is justified. Fear is not necessarily bad. It is an emotional response to pain. It serves as a warning. So, should we always disregard such fear and act in the face of fear? Some would regard acting in the face of fear as courageous, while others would think it the height of presumption and foolishness!

Courage is built when fear is faced, acknowledged and addressed. Sometimes the fear is an entrance into "self-knowledge", while other times it is a call to courageous acts.

One cannot be too simple in understanding human emotion.

Brain, Mind, Emotions, and Memory Response and Living in the Real World

Last night my husband and I watched a movie with Morgan Freeman. His moives usually have some meaning or message, and they are usually good. We thought we might be "headed to see" some B rated movie, as we'd gotten several movies from Sam's Club for under $5. But, we were delightfully surprised!

The movie was about two serial killers. Morgan Freeman was a forensic psychologist from D.C. who travelled to the Triangle Park, N. C. area to help the police there find the suspected killer. He had a "dog in the fight", as his neice had been missing for several weeks.

To make a long story short and to get to my point, the movie was intensely suspenseful and just when you thought that the movie was solved, there was another "crook in the road"..This led to an emotional connection with the movie unlike most. And the post traumatic stress that the main escapee suffered was experienced alongside her.

In my sleep, I kept having dreams as if the situations had happened to me; whispering in my ear from the murderer, running away from the killer, etc. This led to a fitful night and waking up several times to realize "it was only a dream".

I had not eaten anything out of the ordinary last night and had gone to bed as usual. So, there should've been nothing that would have made my sleep different, except for the movie.

My unprofessional and "scientific" suspicion is that my emotional connectedness to the movie led me to an emphathetic response. I had experienced the situation personally.

Is this not what we experience with those we feel connected to when they suffer? Our emotional connection leads us to justify their misfortunes, reach out to help, and understand their weaknesses.

I think that our reason is useful to help us function in the world without collapsing into a "pool of emotion". What good would that do? So, our reason help us rationalize our lives so that we live reasonably, not emphathetically. We cannot "love humanity", as that is an 'ideal" and ideals have to be defined and practically understood for there to be real meaning and purpose.

This is where we play out our lives committed to certain values which are prioritized accordingly. We live rationally, according to our values.

And I believe that values are a culmalative conglomoration of different experiences, individual personality and interests. Therefore, universals do not exist in the real world, only "ideals" that are manifested differently.