Fears

[ValentinClarke]

Please, feel free to move this post to somewhere more suitable.

Fears, why do we have them? They are almost always irrational. If you are scared of sharks, why? Because they could kill you. So, could nearly everything else. Fears should wake us up, not shut us down. They are our greatest delusions. I am working on destroying my fears. Mostly, because I read Divergent and it has changed my mindset. Tell me your fears if you want, and how you plan to conquer them.

I have near no fears. I have intense dislikes. They are:
Vomit, the action of someone else and/or me doing it, Bees, wasps and things of that sort, heights, but I'm close to destroying that one completely, pain, I'm focussing on making sure it doesn't have as big an impact on me.

[WaffleSingSong]

Fear is built in many animals instinct as a way to protect that species. It's your brains way of telling you that you most likely will be unable to deliver your DNA in the human gene pool if you do this. Fear is one of the reasons that humanity has been able to survive and thrive, because when we see something deadly, we go "Oh shit!" If we didn't, we would probably died out a long time ago. They are far from irrational in most cases, as they are not even really a mental process that you choose, it's an instinct. We were all born to be scared little bitches, and that's okay! :D.

Also, do you mind helping me define your difference between fear and intense dislike? Thanks.

[ValentinClarke]

My intene dislikes, I can get over them in many situationsbut but my fears are different, always there

[Bleid]

...

As an addendum to this, it's also the case that having fear in too high concentrations becomes more of a problem for a species.

It's an occasional exercise for students of evolutionary biology to examine the three scenarios of:

#1 A gazelle breed has an intense fear of lions, so much so that if grazing at the watering hole and hearing the slightest rustling in the bushes, the gazelle darts off immediately out of terror. This gazelle breed is rarely killed by lions.

#2 A gazelle breed has a mild fear of lions, such that if the gazelle hears a slight rustling, it will not leave the watering hole out of fear, but if it hears a loud rustling, it will dart off. This gazelle breed is the prey of lions much more often than the previous breed.

#3 A gazelle breed has a nonexistent fear of lions, such that, regardless of what the gazelle hears, it is never frightened away by fears of lions. This gazelle breed is consequently a regular prey for the lions.

The breed that is most likely to survive? #2. The first breed is so terrified of lions that it barely ever gets to drink from the watering hole and consequently will have many more problems in maintaining its vitals than any of the other breeds, and so even though it may not get killed by the lions often, it will die of other dilemmas. The last breed may get its vitals due to staying at the water hole, but the lions will find it easy prey.

The middle breed, #2, will get caught significantly more by the lions than the first breed, but it will also get a sufficient amount of water akin to the last breed, and consequently, the statistical majority of the time, it will be the "fittest" breed to survive.

[amgb]

We have fears so we can survive. Fear is a human instinct engraved in our bodies that tells us to run when we need to run, fight when we need to fight, or do something to lessen and reduce the fear and erase the danger. Yeah, sometimes fear is irrational; like how a child can fear a monster under the bed when there isn't anything there, or how someone can fear that someone is standing behind them when nobody is there. But fear teaches us to be cautious, it teaches us to protect ourselves. So in healthy amounts fear is a good thing, but if there are too many fears we wouldn't be able to survive either because we'd be too scared to do anything. In a movie I remember there was a phrase 'fear is a choice', but I disagree with that. Fear isn't a choice: how we react to our fear is a choice.

Omg I saw divergent it was so good, I agree that fear should wake us up, not shut us down. My fears; I'm scared of the dark, being alone, being in pain, dying, big animals, fire, and there's probably a heap of other things but yeah.

[TheFSM]

I believe most fears are the work of evolution. Like a fear of the dark stemming from the fact that humans can' tweet very well at night, and therefore are more vulnerable.

[Bleid]

I believe most fears are the work of evolution. Like a fear of the dark stemming from the fact that humans can' tweet very well at night, and therefore are more vulnerable.

I always found it more difficult to tweet about my dessert at night. Nothing is ever open!

[Meh Guy]

Fear is built in many animals instinct as a way to protect that species. It's your brains way of telling you that you most likely will be unable to deliver your DNA in the human gene pool if you do this. Fear is one of the reasons that humanity has been able to survive and thrive, because when we see something deadly, we go "Oh shit!" If we didn't, we would probably died out a long time ago. They are far from irrational in most cases, as they are not even really a mental process that you choose, it's an instinct. We were all born to be scared little bitches, and that's okay! :D

This. It's just like pain, if we didn't feel pain, we would've killed ourselves off a long time ago.

[Miserabilia]

There's instinctive fears, taught fears, trauma fears, unknown fears.
I don't think these are the official terms but basicly;

- instinctive, people fear spiders and snakes even though they probably have only seen them once, possible in a zoo and have far less dangerous experience with them then e.g cars and trains

- taught, like fear of sharp things like knives, which we don't fear as small children.

- trauma, fearing something because you're traumatized by it

- uknown, fearing the unknown because that's human nature

[dirtyboxer55]

i dont know about the book but divergent was probably the worst movie i saw in 2014

[fairmaiden]

Fear is probably there to keep humans alive. If humans never had fear, I think we'd all be dead tbh. It prevents us from doing stupid things. But there are some things that we shouldn't fear.

[Wyatt 13]

Fear is probably there to keep humans alive. If humans never had fear, I think we'd all be dead tbh. It prevents us from doing stupid things. But there are some things that we shouldn't fear.

Agree

[Silicate Wielder]

I believe most fears are the work of evolution. Like a fear of the dark stemming from the fact that humans can' tweet very well at night, and therefore are more vulnerable.

For me it was always that when you look around at night normal shit starts looks like monsters trying to get you (Now, I think some of you who don't, may now see why young children think there are monsters under their beds.)

And yeah, it's like an instinct, we experience a form of trauma like falling from a high place, or being told sharks will kill you. and our brain begins thinking that fear should kick in under circumstances involving those being present.

[DoodleSnap]

Fear is protection. A lot of "irrational fears" are simply societal constructs based off of some form of urban legend. But to play devil's advocate to the max, is any fear rational? because there is no need as such to prevent something happening; just a potential action and a set consequences. Just something to think about :P

[tasminsmith]

I have loads fears I try to ignore them, except heights I love heights and I would love to fly.

[the main man]

i fear leaving this world and not being remembered bec other wise whats the point in living