Fear or its equivalent is instinctually hardwired into most animals. A deer may not experience “fear” as we know it, but certain perceptions of sight, sound, or smell will provoke a flight response. Humans seem to inherit the whole range of abilities to be afraid of various things and provide actions to avoid or deal with issues .
A problem is that our overactive brains can invent many things to fear. Some are real – will that approaching car hit us? Some are imaginary – does that creaking tree contain a malignant ghost? It is useless to talk about rationality, because all fear is only probability, and my mind can manipulate anything to appear rational (at least to me) .
“Paralyzed by fear” is a real thing, often transmuted to “enervated by fear”. Today there are such fears everywhere, focused by attention-grabbing media or sales provocateurs. If we listened to them all, we’d never leave the house. We’d be deeply worried all the time anyway .
I think the greater danger is that all the minor trivial fears desensitize us to real problems. We have to learn to ignore so much that we cannot recognize something we really should do something about .
Like that deer caught in the headlights, we never react to the sound of the rifle being cocked. Our entire civilization is now paralyzed by the onslaught of the internet .
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 