Fear and Loathing

[CometheytoldmepapapaPapillon]

Afew of us were interested awhile back in discussing the realms of these two winsome ways upon our lives and in society at large.

So if anyone has time in between flirting with Santa - lets hallucinate!

Here is something I read today which I really like :

Fear can be one of our greatest allies. It is she who can show us what we need to make tighter or let go of in our lives.

So fear the ally, needs not be fear the enemy?!

I think fear is a bit like pain - that it is a good thing, as it warns us to avoid dangerous situations. It becomes a bad thing when the fear is triggered by objectively non-dangerous situations.

I think fear along with every other emotion is worthy of (in fact, necessitates) analysis. I find my problems occur if I become fearful of fear (IYSWIM) and allow it to remain an unknown quantity. Exploration of it prevents it's ability to hi-jack my thought processes.

OTOH, I don't do loathing . I refuse to become embittered, I know I could quite easily. In fact I often feel it would be easier to succumb to loathing than work towards rationale in any given issue or situation!

As for 'Fear and Loathing', IIRC I quite enjoyed the book as a teen!

( Hi MTS! )

Whatsoever the mind desires if it believes it can achieve.

I was given a great quote on a course some years ago. It was simply that fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. If you think about it, all hatred/loathing is based in fear and, unfortunately, the media uses people's fears to sensationalise events it reports on - making the fears worse and creating global environment of reactive loathing and suspicion.
I really believe that understanding is the key but don't quite know how that can be promoted on a wide enough scale to make a difference.

A lyric from Faithless

Fear is a weapon of mass destruction

I think our everyday language contains lots of fear words and sayings. I really notice this more and more. Even for example the words of support and motivation.... "hang in there". To hang seems rather like being on tenderhooks and that you could fall at any time.

By changing my reality regarding how I use words, my confidence grows and fear diminishes. It is like seeing differently inside and out.

That sums up for me what you have all been saying!

I am a great believer in confronting my fears (I know we can all come up with lots of cliches 'feel the fear and do it anyway etc' but it works for me) It's like deciding to stand up to a bully! One gets a tremendous feeling of relief when one has faced up to a fear and conquered it. Maybe doesn't work for faceless demons tho ....

False Evidence Appearing Real. Yep, I had heard of that one. Like that.