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The fear factor
DaddyOh
With Tony Robinson
Sunday, July 05, 2009
It is the part of men
To fear and tremble,
When the most mighty gods by tokens send
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.
- Shakespeare, Julius Caesar.
Oh, the gods do send down mighty crosses on mankind, and have done so through the centuries, at least so it was thought, especially by the Greeks, who had so many gods - Athena, Ares, Apollo and many others, with Zeus being the chief of them all.
They thought that all their trials and tribulations were foisted on them by those cruel and vengeful gods who saw mortal men as mere playthings to be toyed with at their pleasure, the same way a cat would toy with a mouse. This brought great fear, with which many of us are still filled.
Yes, mankind is full of fear, and fear can be most crippling. And yet, it is said that there's nothing to fear but fear itself. It's also said, that 'what you fear will certainly befall you'. What fear does is petrify you, it makes you break out in a cold sweat, it makes you unable to sleep at nights as you toss and turn and listen to the night noises as the world closes in on you. Fear makes you stop eating, stop sleeping, and basically stop functioning as a normal, balanced person.
It can even make you be afraid to leave your house and talk to people. And yet, fear can also have another effect, as it makes you angry and bitter as you lash out at others, even for no apparent reason. But the reason is fear. That's why all bullies are cowards at heart.
Basically fear is embedded in our genetic makeup and is a necessary part of our being, for with fear, the body produces adrenalin, the hormone that spurs our bodies into action, to either fight or flee. Fear is a survival instinct. But some people neither fight nor flee, but stand rooted to the spot like a sycamore tree, while their aggressor overpowers them.
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Babies have no fear, but they do have a powerful survival instinct, and will not creep off a table. They may fall off through loss of balance, but they will not creep off. Their fear is learned, and who better to teach fear than the fearful parent. I know so many parents who have taught their children to fear water, all because they fear it themselves, so the child grows up with a morbid fear of bodies of water and never learns how to swim.
"Listen, if yu don't go a sea or river, yu cyaan drown," is their theory. I have seen it first-hand, and have even been instrumental in getting children to overcome this fear of water, until they even made their school's swim team. Take away fear and you can do almost anything. But it's not so simple or easy to achieve.
I have been doing martial arts for well over 38 years, but I'm reluctant to tell you, as you might guess my age, but I've been training from when I was a wee lad. In spite of what you may have heard, karate teaches you to face your fear, control it, overcome it, then use it to your advantage.
Bravery is not the absence of fear, for fear will always be there, but it's how you channel this negative energy into something positive that makes the difference. Plus, you can't be brave unless you're afraid... think about that. You do not fight your opponent, you fight yourself, fight your inward trepidation and have faith in yourself. In the early days of my karate training I had felt fear, especially when facing a new, big, unknown opponent who had a huge reputation. But after fighting these guys, I realised that they were just men, like me, and I felt my strength grow and that no one could defeat me.
Of course, there will always be people who are stronger than you and may also defeat you, but if you go in with that mindset, you have already lost, so the thought of defeat never entered my mind. Most true martial artists think this way, and boxer Mohammed Ali mastered it. It's a good concept to adopt in everyday life, as we are constantly surrounded by things that will instil fear in us all the time.
Perhaps the biggest fear is the emotional kind, and not the physical, as scientists have proven that this fear, especially if it was fostered from an early age, can cripple a person emotionally. So many people are scarred for life because of childhood fears, and one great fear is fear of the opposite sex. Believe it or not, more men fear women than the other way around, and it manifests itself in various ways.
Who remembers as a teenage boy how they used to fear to approach a pretty girl? What was to fear? After all, she couldn't beat you up? But aha, she could do worse, she had the power to reject and rebuff you, and that is perhaps a young man's greatest fear of all. So as a foil, a counter, he may put on an act of bravado and act as if he doesn't even like her, or worse yet, he may abuse her, all because of his inherent fear.
Yes, men fear women and always have, always will. They fear them so much that it impacts on their sexual performance. Even big, grown, supposedly experienced men still harbour this fear, and as a result end up in all sorts of embarrassing situations. This fear of women can be so crippling that a man will fail to rise to the occasion, and if he does manage to eke out a semi-turgidity, it's so ephemeral, so fleeting, and he reaches the finish line faster than Asafa Powell or Usain Bolt sprints a hundred metres. And that's fast.
To overcome this fear, some men may resort to various tactics, like dating very young girls, still in school, or women who they think are below their social standing, or even date very ugly women. By doing so, they take away any perceived threat that they think might be present, therefore, no threat, no fear. That's the best sexual performance enhancer that they could ever have.
I really can't recall any woman having sexual performance anxiety brought on by fear, that's the domain of men. Women don't fear men, but often pity them. "Poor thing, him really try, but him just can't handle it, but I would never tell him though."
But women do not escape emotional fear, for what women fear most of all is loneliness. That, to a woman, is anathema, perhaps her greatest fear of all, and she will do anything in her power to mask it. A woman needs to feel loved, wanted, needed, and if those aren't forthcoming, then the fear multiplies tenfold. That's why women need to always hear the words "I love you." Men don't really care about that, as long as she's available he'll be fine.
So many women fret and say, "Oh my God, don't tell me that I'm going to end up like my mother, over 50 and all alone, because that brute of a man left her for that trollop." That's why women will put up with so much crap from men. It's not necessarily because they love them, but the fear of being alone supersedes all other factors. And guess what, men know this, and feed this fear, fanning the flames with threats of leaving and so on. But ladies, let him go, even though it's easier said than done, let him go, above all things, to thine own self be true.
Many men who fear women turn into emotional bullies and spend their every waking hour berating and abusing the woman in every imaginable way. All this anger is caused by his fear and insecurities. Perhaps he sees her climbing the socio-economic ladder, while he's merely holding it upright. Perhaps he sees her drifting away, and he fears losing her to another, so his fear turns to abuse. And speaking of losing her to another, it's arguable that a man's biggest emotional fear is losing his woman to another man. "Man, the last thing I want to know is that my woman deh wid anodder man. I woulda go mad."
There is also the fear of failure, which can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that you fear failure so much that you're doomed to fail, brought on by so much negative energy. Ironically, others fear success, as they feel that it will be short-lived, and they'll end up right back to square one. This happens to many rock stars who made it big quickly and did not get accustomed to the success, all the time fearing that pretty soon it'll disappear in a flash and they'll be back to parking cars or pumping gas. So they turn to drugs, and the decline sets in.
Have you ever checked it out? It's only when you start thinking and fearing too much that you get all nervous and jittery. Remember the old analogy about walking on a plank over and over without falling off, but place that same plank 40 feet up in the air and see how nervous you get about walking across on it?
Listen, forget fear, it cripples. Forget fear, it only destroys. Forget fear, it only stunts your growth. Just go for it.
More time.
seido1@hotmail.com
Footnote: Maybe you noticed the strong martial arts slant this week, but last week Saturday was the premier martial arts tournament in the Caribbean, The Seido Karate Open International which was exemplary. It was such a joy to see martial artists from all different styles - Kung Fu, Karate, Taekwondo, Kickboxing and others - competing without ill-feeling. But it was the children from as young as four years old who were the real stars.
I saw some very interesting information regarding the Australian aborigines. Did you know that up to 1898, thousands of Aborigine babies were taken from their parents and integrated into 'normal' Australian households? Research shows that almost every aborigine family was affected by this national atrocity and it's only now that the current prime minister is apologising for practices of the past. Every country has its skeletons in its closets.
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