Daily Prompt: Fearless Fantasies
How would your life be different if you were incapable of feeling fear? Would your life be better or worse than it is now?
Wikipedia image
I’m not sure how my life would be without fear. I know this much if I wasn’t afraid of anything, I’d do things that I normally wouldn’t do.
To me the fear element in me keeps me from doing things that are dangerous. I wouldn’t buy things on credit if I know I will not be able to pay my bills. I wouldn’t go for a walk in the middle of night in a strange city. I am very cautious which I feel is good for me.
Then again certain things happened in my life makes me afraid of dogs. It happened when I was very young,my sister wrote a note to her friend and gave it to me to take it to her. It was early evening, the friend lived close by, I mistook someone else’s house as hers, and walked along the driveway, I saw a bunch of dogs on the front veranda, somehow I suddenly got scared and felt they might come after me. I started walking backwards all the while watching them. The dogs thinking me to be an intruder, jumped down, barked viciously and came towards me, I was so frightened I kept running and screaming. That was the day, fear of dogs was permanently entrenched in my mind. I haven’t been able to overcome this fear.
I guess if I didn’t face this fear of dog at such an early age, I wouldn’t be afraid of dogs.
………………………….. 🙂
Sabethville 
Dear Ranu,
Thank you for sharing this interesting post on fear.
I like how you highlight what I tend to refer to as healthy fear, the kind that keeps us safe. I don’t wish to get hit by a car, and I therefore act on that innate sense of survival by not playing in the road :).
And then there is the other kind of fear that may become uprooted, and thus free us to become higher and higher versions of human beings. From “Islam as a Moral and Political Ideal,” Iqbal shares:
“Although Islam recognises the fact of pain, sin and struggle in nature, yet the principal fact which stands in the way of man’s ethical progress is, according to Islam, neither pain, nor sin, nor struggle. It is fear, to which man is a victim owing to his ignorance of the nature of his environment and want of absolute faith in God. The highest stage of man’s ethical progress is reached when he becomes absolutely free from fear and grief.
The central proposition which regulates the structure of Islam, then, is that there is fear in nature, and the object of Islam is to free man from fear.”
Thank you again for this very nice post.
All good wishes,
robert
Dear Robert,
When I was writing this prompt I was certain you’d bring up this fact we learned in our course. But I did so because I cannot deny the fact, I’m still afraid of dogs and refuse to visit friends who own dogs. While what you have written is absolutely true, but didn’t we also learn to be cautious? In Bengali there is a Proverb, “Shabdhaner maar nai.” meaning, cautiousness always helps, unless you are destined to be in trouble. Thank you for your comment. 🙂