What fear is, how it manifests and what does it finally mean is a topic of my interest presently. Fear, by mere definition, means “an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger”. Since dictionaries tend to generalize the meaning, we could accept fear so. However, what that specific pain is, is outside the lexicographic domain. I relate that specificity invariably to death! Its as if the fear of death, knowingly or unknowingly, is the substratum for all the fears; it’s the mother of all fears.
Be it the fear of snakes, ghosts, all sorts of phobias, or even that of the unknown. Ironically, I wonder if the fear of life, for people who attempt suicide, is also a fear of death! It may be a little far-fetched, but its something to think about. For now, lets take it for me to be saying that barring the fear of life, all other fears are but a fear of death.
Only because fear concerns itself with the matter of death, the locus of fear cannot be found. Just as any other matter related to death or death itself is a mystery, so is fear too. Fear is an inherent feeling just as existence is. It arises subjectively depending on other external factors, but it arises internally. Fear, by itself does not stand separately outside an individual. It’s a phenomenon that grabs the mind and takes it along into its depths towards the area that we may term as a death zone. A person, when in fear, cares about nothing, however logical or scientific.
So how do we deal with fear? I personally feel that trying to analyze death itself could cure all the fears. What is it that excites a person about life? What is it that an individual is going to do living a longer life? How will it matter to a person what lies after death? Does it affect how a person dies? To such series of thoughts, someone eventually brings up: your family will be affected if you die or even if you don’t, a handicap could burden your dependents more than death. Now that’s categorically fear, is it not? So, you tag along with life the way it is. But, if you carefully analyze this botheration, you could easily see that what we consider as a matter of concern for our family is factually a matter of our own concern. That I may not live to witness my family suffer is not a concern towards the family but it’s a selfish feeling of not wanting to be pained by my family’s suffering!
Be it the fear of snakes, ghosts, all sorts of phobias, or even that of the unknown. Ironically, I wonder if the fear of life, for people who attempt suicide, is also a fear of death! It may be a little far-fetched, but its something to think about. For now, lets take it for me to be saying that barring the fear of life, all other fears are but a fear of death.
Only because fear concerns itself with the matter of death, the locus of fear cannot be found. Just as any other matter related to death or death itself is a mystery, so is fear too. Fear is an inherent feeling just as existence is. It arises subjectively depending on other external factors, but it arises internally. Fear, by itself does not stand separately outside an individual. It’s a phenomenon that grabs the mind and takes it along into its depths towards the area that we may term as a death zone. A person, when in fear, cares about nothing, however logical or scientific.
So how do we deal with fear? I personally feel that trying to analyze death itself could cure all the fears. What is it that excites a person about life? What is it that an individual is going to do living a longer life? How will it matter to a person what lies after death? Does it affect how a person dies? To such series of thoughts, someone eventually brings up: your family will be affected if you die or even if you don’t, a handicap could burden your dependents more than death. Now that’s categorically fear, is it not? So, you tag along with life the way it is. But, if you carefully analyze this botheration, you could easily see that what we consider as a matter of concern for our family is factually a matter of our own concern. That I may not live to witness my family suffer is not a concern towards the family but it’s a selfish feeling of not wanting to be pained by my family’s suffering!
3 comments:
fear of death is imprinted in mind.
fear of death is a part of fear of UNKNOWN!
That is a common (mis)understanding; but I differ from the view. Fear is an *anticipation*; if it is unknown, how can you anticipate, how can you fear death then?
The key is, therefore, not *unknown*, but *partly-known* (wrongly known or misunderstood). If its totally unknown, there can be no fear per se. (Taking a spiritual side to it, fear of death is carried from earlier lives!)
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