Post by donq on Jul 25, 2014 6:29:27 GMT
To fear or not to fear?
No, no, this thread has nothing to do with Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be: that is the question”
I’ve just finished watching After Earth (2013) after had hesitated for a while because of the negative reviews. Anyway, I think this movie is not so bad and I like this quote (father to his son):
“Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity… Do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice.”
This reminds me of a story I read long time ago. Here’s its ending:
Moibi climbed the mountain and saw the monster basking in the sun outside his cave. The closer he came, the smaller the beast got. The enormous beast saw him, and snorted fire, and the singed Moibi retreated. But Moibi was puzzled by the fact that the monster grew in size as he got further sway. He thought that if he got close enough, the monster would be a small enough to kill. He steeled himself and looked in a different direction as he ran up the mountain to the monster’s cave. When he arrived, he discovered that the monster was actually the size of a frog. He picked it up and scratched its back, and it made a sound that was a cross between a purr and a simmering pot. Moibi carried it off as a pet.
Back in the village he was acclaimed a mighty hunter, and nobody would believe that he hadn’t killed the monster until he showed them how the little monster’s size increased as they walked further away from him. “What’s his name?” they asked Moibi. Before he could answer, the little monster said, “Most people called me ‘what-might-happen.’ ”
- “The Monster that grew small” by Grant , J.
However, I believe that there’s another “fear” that has has something to do with our deep (spiritual) feelings. And if that’s the case, we should not consider it as only our imagination.
As Dr. Walter Kroner wrote:
“Each immediate psychological reaction to people and things: sympathy and antipathy, liking and aversion, everything we understand by the notions presentiment, intuition, and instinct, does not spring naked from the pondering provoked by stimulation of the senses, or from association, but is at least partly the result of a direct, i.e., telepathic, response. This intuitive reaction is especially striking in artists, women, and children. Hence, even in normal individuals, an atavistic mediumistic ability is continually at work in the unconscious.”
Don’t get me wrong. Fear is not real (or worse than that, sometimes, our fears could make what we fear happen even it should not happen.) I only think that sometimes we have to listen to our gut feeling. Why? Because so many times, our intellect are not enough and we need a new compass to guide us that time. It’s like when we are walking into a dark room, we can sense by its atmosphere if anyone is there or not. It’s NOT our imagination if we could “sense” someone in there. It’s just something that’s hard to explain by our intellect.
“In case where intellect alone is not sufficient for making a correct choice of the ways that should be taken, we must turn to our prescience and inner sensitivity while strengthening our instinct progressively, as if it were a compass needle we were learning to trust.”
- Gustav Meyrink
I will finish this post with what a funny truth (or not?
Dr. Franz Hartmann said:
The sheep does not need to be instructed by a zoologist to seek to escape if a tiger approaches: it knows by his signature and without argumentation that he is its enemy. Is it not more important for the sheep to know the ferocious character of the tiger than to be informed that the latter belongs to the genus felis? If by some miracle a sheep should become intellectual, it might learn so much about the external form, anatomy, physiology, and genealogy of the tiger, that it would lose sight of its internal character and be devoured by him.
No, no, this thread has nothing to do with Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be: that is the question”
I’ve just finished watching After Earth (2013) after had hesitated for a while because of the negative reviews. Anyway, I think this movie is not so bad and I like this quote (father to his son):
“Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity… Do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice.”
This reminds me of a story I read long time ago. Here’s its ending:
Moibi climbed the mountain and saw the monster basking in the sun outside his cave. The closer he came, the smaller the beast got. The enormous beast saw him, and snorted fire, and the singed Moibi retreated. But Moibi was puzzled by the fact that the monster grew in size as he got further sway. He thought that if he got close enough, the monster would be a small enough to kill. He steeled himself and looked in a different direction as he ran up the mountain to the monster’s cave. When he arrived, he discovered that the monster was actually the size of a frog. He picked it up and scratched its back, and it made a sound that was a cross between a purr and a simmering pot. Moibi carried it off as a pet.
Back in the village he was acclaimed a mighty hunter, and nobody would believe that he hadn’t killed the monster until he showed them how the little monster’s size increased as they walked further away from him. “What’s his name?” they asked Moibi. Before he could answer, the little monster said, “Most people called me ‘what-might-happen.’ ”
- “The Monster that grew small” by Grant , J.
However, I believe that there’s another “fear” that has has something to do with our deep (spiritual) feelings. And if that’s the case, we should not consider it as only our imagination.
As Dr. Walter Kroner wrote:
“Each immediate psychological reaction to people and things: sympathy and antipathy, liking and aversion, everything we understand by the notions presentiment, intuition, and instinct, does not spring naked from the pondering provoked by stimulation of the senses, or from association, but is at least partly the result of a direct, i.e., telepathic, response. This intuitive reaction is especially striking in artists, women, and children. Hence, even in normal individuals, an atavistic mediumistic ability is continually at work in the unconscious.”
Don’t get me wrong. Fear is not real (or worse than that, sometimes, our fears could make what we fear happen even it should not happen.) I only think that sometimes we have to listen to our gut feeling. Why? Because so many times, our intellect are not enough and we need a new compass to guide us that time. It’s like when we are walking into a dark room, we can sense by its atmosphere if anyone is there or not. It’s NOT our imagination if we could “sense” someone in there. It’s just something that’s hard to explain by our intellect.
“In case where intellect alone is not sufficient for making a correct choice of the ways that should be taken, we must turn to our prescience and inner sensitivity while strengthening our instinct progressively, as if it were a compass needle we were learning to trust.”
- Gustav Meyrink
I will finish this post with what a funny truth (or not?
Dr. Franz Hartmann said:The sheep does not need to be instructed by a zoologist to seek to escape if a tiger approaches: it knows by his signature and without argumentation that he is its enemy. Is it not more important for the sheep to know the ferocious character of the tiger than to be informed that the latter belongs to the genus felis? If by some miracle a sheep should become intellectual, it might learn so much about the external form, anatomy, physiology, and genealogy of the tiger, that it would lose sight of its internal character and be devoured by him.
