Fear is a great motivator. Look at what 9-11 has accomplished – My god. It’s slammed the economy, It’s – I can’t even begin to detail all it’s actually done, other than bring down the buildings and hit the Pentagon. It’s stunned the entire nation.
The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
Fear is present when we forget that we are a part of God’s divine design. Learning to experience authentic love means abandoning ego’s insistence that you have much to fear and that you are in an unfriendly world. You can make the decision to be free from fear and doubt and return to the brilliant light of love that is always with you.
I don’t like rats, but there’s not much else I don’t like. The problem with rats is they have no fear of human beings, they’re loaded with foul diseases, they would run the place given half the chance, and I’ve had them leap out of a lavatory while I’ve been sitting on it.
My mother brought me numerous times to visit Orton as a child, and I have visited the gardens with my children many times. Orton is a gem on the Cape Fear River and I am excited about our restoration efforts to bring it back to its original landscape.
The first of the four noble truths of Buddhism, that there is suffering in life, was enormously important to me. No one had ever said it out loud. That had been my experience, of course, but no one had ever talked about it. I didn’t know what to do with all the fear and emotions within, and here was the Buddha saying this truth right out loud.
I didn’t have any aspirations of becoming famous or successful; in fact I was scared to death of all that. I remember somebody once said that if a rock musician goes on tour, he goes insane. I was very impressionable and I carried this useless weight of fear around with me about going on tour, all because of this thing somebody said.
No one should have to choose between medicine and other necessities. No one should have to use the emergency room every time a child gets sick. And no one should have to live in constant fear that a medical problem will become a financial crisis.
I always felt that if someone shot me, it would be great for the environmental movement, because they would make me a martyr. Our biggest fear was our children, because there was a tremendous amount of threat and intimidation, and my wife was terrified that the children might be grabbed or assaulted in some way. That was the real fear.
It was fear. He didn’t want to see a united Germany. Stalin made it clear to me – I spoke with him many times – that they couldn’t afford to let Germany build up again. They’d been invaded twice, and he wasn’t willing to have it happen again.
The truth is when you have a movie that was as successful as ‘Chronicle’ was, it’s not as quick of a process. There are a lot more voices coming in and saying ‘This is what the sequel should be’ because there’s a bigger expectation and a bigger fear of failure. And that’s really what’s going on with ‘Chronicle 2.’
Teenagers watch and listen to all kinds of things. It is the nature of being a teenager to seek out intense stuff. Stuff about death and sex and love and fear. Teenagers are the bravest, most curious, most philosophical, most open-minded readers there are, which is why so many less-than-young adults like writing for them.
I can imagine that the Iraqis undertake the destruction out of fear. If they had denied it, if they had said no, that certainly would have played into the hands of those that would like to take armed action immediately. I have no illusions in that regard.
We are becoming so fickle and self involved. Always looking for the next best thing – especially when it comes to people. We spend hours buried in our phones trying to keep up with the social lives of people we may not even know. Envy and the fear of missing out have taken over. Yet we are all still longing for human connection.
Because of media hype and woefully inadequate information, too many people nowadays are deathly afraid of their food, and what does fear of food do to the digestive system? I am sure that an unhappy or suspicious stomach, constricted and uneasy with worry, cannot digest properly.
‘Grace’ is basically a death prayer. Not something of sorrow, but of just casting away any fear of death. No relief will come – you really just have to stew in your life until it’s time to go. But sometimes, somebody else’s faith in you can do wonders.
What people fear most about tragedy is its randomness – a taxi cab jumps the curb and hits a pedestrian, a gun misfires and kills a bystander. Better to have some rational cause and effect between incident and injury. And if cause and effect aren’t possible, better that there at least be some reward for all the suffering.
Imagination is a pretty powerful thing, and when you’re in the moment and you’re riding a train and you’re asked to look scared, I don’t know, it just kind of works out. And in those moments where you’re actually doing some of the stunts, then it’s not so hard at all, because there’s an actual fear there.
On the environment and climate change, I suspect that future generations will think there was too much timidity, too much fear of upsetting business. Basically, New Labour was very nervous about regulating business, or requiring it to do anything, even when there was a very clear social or environmental case for doing so.
The fear of life, the fear of burdens and of duties, of annoyances and of catastrophes! The fear of life, which makes us, through dread of its sufferings, refuse its joys. Ah! I tell you, this cowardliness enrages me; I cannot forgive it. We must live – live a complete life – live all our life.
As a little girl, I didn’t like stories about little girls. I liked stories about dragons and beasts and princes and princesses and fear and terror and the Four Musketeers and almost anything other than nice little girls making moral decisions about whether to tell the teacher about what the other little girl did or did not do.
Our age gives the more receptive among the young such a sense of social responsibility that one is inclined at times to fear that social interests may encroach upon individual development, that a knowledge of all the ills affecting the community may act as too powerful a damper on the joys of youth.
I suppose to the outside world I do seem slightly obsessed. But I once had a balance problem with my inner ear, and the fear loitered. Yet I have found that golf is like a yoga procedure for me: it’s had wonderful, sedative, remedial qualities for my day-to-day life.
A lot of us are ruled by fear during our lives – afraid we’ll get burgled, afraid a dog will bite us, afraid we’ll get fat, afraid someone will leave us. Once you lose fear, life becomes sweeter, and that happens as you get older. I’m sure by the time I’m 80, I’ll be able to do absolutely anything!
A line from one of my 1997 columns – ‘Do one thing every day that scares you’ – is now widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, though I have yet to see any evidence that she ever said it and I don’t believe she did. She said some things about fear, but not that thing.
