The Manifestations of Fear

This blog is about fear, because fear is the number one driving force behind all negative emotions.  Fear shows up in anger, procrastination,, jealousy, lust, greed, envy, and many more negative emotions.  If you take the seven deadly sins for example, which are lust, greed, gluttony, sloth, pride, wrath, and envy, fear shows up in all of them.  What I am intending to demonstrate in this blog post is how fear can drive us in all sorts of ways.  It can rule our lives, but if we face fears the positive feeling is awesome.

  Fear=false evidence appearing real, fuck everything and run, or false expectations appearing real.  That last one can kick me in the rear sometimes.  Fear based expectations often appear right but are wrong.    Fear can also = face everything and recover, or face everything and rejoice, and I am going to add face everything and reality, or feeling exited and ready.

  There are many ways in which fear rules our thoughts and emotions.  Lets use jealousy as an example.  Why do people get jealous in relationships.  I don't claim to be a relationship expert, but I can conclude that jealousy is caused by fear of losing what we already have.  Othello is so afraid of losing Desdemona, that he kills her.  Of course he also listens to Jago who is probably the most evil villain in literature, or at least ranks up pretty high.  He doesn't get by with a little help from his friends if you know what I mean.  I will use a few examples from operas now to demonstrate the connection of fear and jealousy.  Tosca is afraid of losing Cavaradossi throughout the whole freaking opera.  He even calls her "mia gelosa."  Jealousy is pretty powerful isn't it?  Not to mention flat out dangerous and damaging.  Fear is where jealousy gets its power and goes way over the top.

    There are so many ways in which fear rules live.  I'm not going to talk about all seven deadly sins.  I was basically talking about envy in the last paragraph, but not exactly.  Envy is wanting to possess something I don't already have. Lets go back to relationships.  If I am envious, I wish to have something that another person has, like another mans wife.  If I say, well she shouldn't be with him, but she should be with me, I'm being quite envious for sure.  Now, if I ask this person to a romantic dinner and a hot tub, I am totally crossing the line, and if the other guy is jealous, then we have jealousy.  Of course the jealousy would be the result if she goes through with the romantic dinner and hot tub idea, the other guy would be afraid of losing her. 

   Sloth is another way in which fear really can kick our behinds.  I pair sloth together with procrastination.  In my experience procrastination stems off of fear.  If I am afraid to make positive changes or afraid to do auditions or whatever, I might put them off.  That's procrastination.  Sloth can play a role because something like cleaning my apartment is a positive change, and if I procrastinate it's slothful.  By sloth I am not talking about the slow moving animal that actress Kristin Bell starts crying over, although since they are slow, there is a connection to the double meaning of the word sloth.  However, all jokes aside, procrastination is totally based on fear from my experience, and can really drain us in a major way.

   There are many ways in which anger manifests, and fear plays a factor im all of it.  One of them is in the form of getting defensive.  If someone asks me something personal, by which the answer might make me vulnerable, fear shows up in the form of anger, and I can get defensive.  People respond like that with certain subjects, I'm not the only one.  Underneath the anger response is fear of failure, fear of rejection or whatever.  Fear of being vulnerable, boy that's a big trigger for anger sometimes isn't it?  Fear can show its ugly head when I'm driving in traffic.  The good news is that we can outgrow all this fear, and it is important to do so.

   I want to end this post on a positive note.  I like the acronym feeling excited and ready.  Now it depends on what we are talking about when I say that.  If I have a concert, there's going to fear of the unknown, that shows up in the form of anxiety.  Okay, so what am I going do with that?  The choices are positive, feel excited and ready, face everything and rejoice, or the negative f everything and run.  What choice results in a better concert?  Maybe there are people who can go into a concert 100% nerve free, but I am not that lucky.  Pavarotti said if you say you're not nervous you're lying.  That's a powerful statement from Pav there isn't it?  So, how do I go to the positive place?  Prepare well for the concert, and bring in positive energy.  

   The opposite of fear is faith, which is trust.  Turning fear into trust is the ultimate cure for fear .  There has to be a trust in something to face a fear, or I'll never face it.  By trust, I mean just a feeling that whatever the situation is needs to be faced.  If I have a fear that really needs to be faced, I will know because when I don't face it then the desire to f everything and run increases 100 fold, so therefore, I know I need to face that situation.  Let me ask this question.  How awesome does it feel when you face a lingering fear?  It feels like I'm on top of the world, but facing fears is a lifetime process.  Go easy on yourself about it, and if there is a fear you have on a really important issue, really put in the effort to face it.