It’s that feeling. That unpleasant gripping feeling that tells you something is wrong. It stops you. It makes you turn around that one more time. But fear isn’t an alien being that descends upon us occasionally. It is something that is inherent to life and to survival itself.
Some would say we learn fear. As a child, we’re told stories of monsters and demons. Told not to talk to strangers and never open the door to anyone. But what we’re taught are things to be afraid of and not fear itself. Fear is more primal than that. It is a part of our very being. To be alive is to be fearful. It is almost limiting, necessary to maintain a world order of sorts. If we weren’t afraid, we wouldn’t stop. We wouldn’t restrain anything. In some way, by its very limiting nature, fear fuels us on.
We study, learn to live, earn a living, to deal with the fear of death. We marry, reproduce, to deal with a fear of another kind- the fear of being lost in the world and leave without a trace. But if it were so negative, so undesirable, why would we revel in it so? A crude example would be watching a horror movie. You know it will scare you, make you feel unpleasant. But you still pay money to experience that feeling. One of the truths probably lies in the adrenaline rush that fear gives. Fear makes us feel a little more alive by creating the sense of mortality. Even if all fear is not mortal in nature, it reaches the same place in our hearts. But all this is the good stuff. Why fear is good for us.
But what if it becomes something frustrating? What if it makes us unable to live? Fear can stop us from succeeding, from achieving. It can make us hurt people we love. Fear can destroy. And in that beautiful paradox that is fear, we constantly negotiate the victories and defeats of everyday life and ultimately create our own existence.
