Scardey Cat

_{Watching: zoolon.deviantart.com (Gorrilaz Music Video)}

F E A R
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Fear is nothing more than untested curiosity. It is the unknown manifested in monster form to keep us out of the woods at night and away from top secret government bases. Fear is our emotional police force. It is meant to arrest our childish adventurous spirit and keep our inquisitive nature in check.
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BOO! Did I scare you? No? What if I told you that your mother in law was coming to live with you? You can handle that too? What if I told you I work for the IRS? No big deal huh? What if I said this is the last entry I will ever make in this blog ever? No, no no, stop crying. I was just joking. Awww come on don't blow snot on me!

Fear [definition]. What are we so afraid of? Why does it still drive our decisions and guide our lives down a path of safety and Bleh. What do we still need it for? I remember when I was younger being afraid to (and please don't laugh at me) pull a shirt over my head because I thought, for some irrationally odd reason, that I might not come out on the other end. Fear is nothing more than untested curiosity. It is the unknown manifested in monster form to keep us out of the woods at night and away from top secret government bases [area 51]. Fear is our emotional police force. It is meant to arrest our childish adventurous spirit and keep our inquisitive nature in check. But why?

Human beings, from what I've observed, are the only creatures that are allowed to act outside of direct stimuli. Example: If a dog is afraid of something it will either puff up and try to look bigger or tuck its tail between its legs and shuffle on, whimpering, out of the way. Humans, however, can postulate [dictionary.com] a wider range of action. We can simply bluff our way beyond the situation. That doesn't mean that the most basic primal instinct isn't still boiling down in the pit of our belly it just means that we are better actors. So if we are so advanced then why do we still need the fear instinct?

Halloween passed not too long ago and I watched a variety of witch, goblin, princess, and ghost children go door to door begging for treats (or tricks) somewhat oblivious to what their costume is supposed to represent. My daughter went out as a "Glamorous Witch" (Fergie immediately comes to mind). I began to wonder if we were so fearful of being scared that we don't even want to risk scaring anything else. Think about it. There are a lot of real things to be scared of right now. There are fires burning in California [CNN]. There was a noose hanging from a tree in Louisiana [wikipedia]. Hurricanes are pounding the east coast [CNN]. Iran [CNN] is building nuclear capability along with North Korea [CNN]. The country is now at "Level Yellow [DHS.org]" security, meaning a terrorist attack can happen at any time (This is the granddaddy of them all), and finally your T.V. not work anymore once they switch to an all digital signal [cnet]. With all of this real stuff to make us cringe (with the exception of the last one), who has time to be afraid of the little things?

F E A R
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Is it because I'm a male that I am just naturally equipped to overcome fear? Are we men the real reason our ancestors ventured outside the caves into the unknown to build this modern world in which we now dwell?
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In my house I'm almost considered superman [imdb]. My duties are to remove all that causes fear. I live in a house with two girls (my fiancé and my daughter) and so I get to be their hero. My duties include killing spiders, ants, "strange blue lights", "weird shaped shadows", and on one occasion a (very slow moving) killer slug. Whew. I always ask, though, once my job is complete, "You do realize that you are 1000 times bigger than them right? I always get the same answer, "It was gonna get me!" Is it because I'm a male that I am just naturally equipped to overcome fear? Are we men the real reason our ancestors ventured outside the caves into the unknown to build this modern world in which we now dwell? Are women our balance? Are they here to keep us from going too far? If you look at it closely it does seem to be a perfect system. Men are the "risk takers" and women are the "circuit breakers".

So it looks like fear does have a purpose. We do have reasons to be afraid but that's nothing that good old fashioned logic and rational thinking can't resolve. Maybe one day we will fully understand the true purpose of our inhibitions. Maybe one day we'll stop being so afraid (or at least stop being afraid of the wrong things). There is nothing wrong with being scared.

But I will leave you with frightening this question:

What are you afraid of? (Are you afraid to answer?)

Read the follow up question to this post at Yahoo! Answers