Everyday Canvas

Fear

For "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" 
Prompt: “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
What are your thoughts on the idea of the fearless feeling powerful?

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That’s exactly what a monster would say, isn’t it? Despite the scary horror a monster is, fear is a normal reaction because its absence marks pathological feelings and actions like cruelty or the lack of sympathy and empathy in a person.

As such, Shelley’s Frankenstein was not well-received at first, probably due to the experiments. Isn’t it a coincidence, an unconscious imitation, or a defect in people that a few decades later, similar experiments were conducted by the Nazis?

Yet, Shelley’s monster isn’t truly evil, but it is upset by the negative treatment it receives from others due to his scary appearance. He is unhappy because he cannot relate to normal humans. He’s even nice at times such as when he rescues a drowning child.

Thus, my conclusion is, yes, a monster can be fearless; yet, underneath that fearlessness lie a heartbreak and the fear of being unacceptable.

Talking about fearlessness, because I have been rationally irrational all my life, when I was eighteen, I read the books and scriptures of all the religions I could get my hands on, and yes, even that of the Sumerians and the Babylonians. Not that I remember much of any of it by now, but I came to the conclusion that all religions return to God by default.

When I saw this quote about Frankenstein, I recalled the path of fearlessness as a Zen habit that advises its followers to see their internal underlying goodness. As our most basic fears have to do with uncertainty, not being good enough, and thus rejection, finding the goodness in us leads us to better behavior.

In conclusion, possibly there is no such thing as fearlessness, as fear is built inside us for survival, but maybe, there are degrees of fearlessness. I think, on scale, fearlessness should stop at confidence because when we remove all fear, it ends up being a death sentence.

For: "Space Blog Group" 

Prompt: from Kurt Philip Behm ‘s "Invalid Item" 
"What are we afraid of if not ourselves?"
What do you think?

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This made me smile, not the quote but the similarity of the two prompts. This coincidence or synchronicity, if you wish, happens quite often among the prompters throughout the blog world in WdC. I am thinking we are all giving out thought waves or something.

As to the prompt, I agree with it 100%. We all have unknown, hidden corners in our psyches that are scary. We may also have experiences that we don’t remember that may influence our behaviors. Earlier traumatic experiences, even when totally blocked to the memory, can affect the way we feel and the way we respond to events and other people.

So, we must keep in mind that the hidden negatives in us are the missions of our psyches searching for a resolution and crying with longing for some kind of a rescue. Yet, we have to be fearful of some of those missions, and each time we catch ourselves acting or thinking spitefully, we must be on the alert and use our willpower not to say or do that hurtful thing.