The Emotion of Fear

Fear

Do all living things fear something? Those with minds surely have many and various fears, but even the simplest organisms must have fear, for fear is such a powerful feeling. Fear is all around us and is felt in every corner of the earth. Fear is the emotion or feeling that a living creature gets when its physical or mental life is interrupted by a change that causes the creature concern.

We humans especially, fear many different things: death, disease, old age, commitment, noises in the night, pain, responsibility, work, being too fat or too thin, or any number of other things. Some of our fears are reasonable and rationale, like the fear for our safety so we lock our doors at night, never walk alone on dark streets, and turn on lots of lights to keep the boogie man away. We fear for our health so we diet, exercise, and eat only healthy foods. Our fears can also help us make wise decisions: where to live, what to do with our money, how to raise our children, even what kind of car to drive and whether or not to drive it.

Our fears may be sudden like when your kid brother jumps out behind you and yells ‘boo’. People’s fears can be built up over a long period of time, for example, during the cold war millions of people thought that at any moment they would be attacked by the Russians, so they built bomb shelters because of that fear. Some of our fears come straight from our imagination. They may appear irrational or silly to others but fear, real or imagined, i...