Being fearless versus learning to control your fears?

Discuss the June 2014 book of the month Divergent by Veronica Roth. While only Divergent--the first book of the series--is the book of the month, feel free to use this subforum to discuss the rest of the series or to talk about the movies, but make sure not to post spoilers unless noted in the topic title.
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Cateyworkman
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Re: Being fearless versus learning to control your fears?

Post by Cateyworkman »

There is no such thing as being fearless. The closest anybody could ever be to fearless, would be if they were in total control and able to overcome their fears. Everybody has something deep down inside that they are terrified, even if it's just the thought of losing something or someone close to them. But, there is no such thing as fearless, to be truly fearless would cause someone to be totally wreck less, and then lose it all. Then you would be completely alone, and almost everyone fears that. Loneliness.
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Post by meganxxcooper »

Fear is important towards development. It's unhealthy to be unafraid. I'd rather learn to control my fears than be completely unafraid.
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Post by Crimsonsky 749 »

I think learning to control your fears is better than being fearless. To me being fearless means you just haven't found something you are truly afraid of yet. When you learn to control your fears you have identified them, faced them and conquered them. Once you conquer your fears they have no more hold on you so if you face them again you can get past them. Unlike with being fearless, if you find your fear after being fearless for so long you are more likely to freeze up. To fall before your fear. However these are just my opinions someone else might think differently.
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Post by Heidi M Simone »

I also don't believe fearless actually exists. Being fearless would mean that a person is not afraid of anything in the world, and who can honestly say that? With that being said, since being fearless doesn't really exist, then learning to control your fears is the way to go. One who can control his/her fears have a powerful mindset and can accomplish almost anything that he/she would want to accomplish. Fear is an emotion and emotions can be controlled, it just takes time, practice, and persistence.

As far as the quote, "half of bravery is perspective” (p. 458), I think it means that what's brave to one doesn't necessarily mean brave to another. For instance, I feel brave when I don't run away from a bee (one of my worst fears), but to someone else being near a bee is no big deal. Therefore, even though both people are placed in the same situation, one feels brave while the other does not - their perspectives are different.
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Post by EleIIIV »

yeah it's really hard to control your fears
fear itself can be use like a weapon so you have to be careful not to let it take over your life
it does keep us from being reckless and keep on guard
but I don't ever want to live in fear forever
I rather push it to the side because it makes you feel very uncomfortable
the best way to be fearless is to always remember that things work out
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Post by DATo »

Fear is a natural response to danger which became part of our psyche over millions of years of evolution. Fear is a NORMAL condition when presented with a situation which could cause us harm or death. It is nature's way of providing a tool to keep us alive so we might breed and create more copies of ourselves. Nature wants us to live and propagate as long as possible.

We have all seen examples on nature shows of mighty beasts backing down from a relatively harmless animal which is ferociously guarding its young. This is because even though a lion, for instance, may be far more powerful than water buffalo, were the lion to become injured it would hamper his/her ability to hunt and survive. The lion instinctively assesses the risk, concludes that waiting for the opportunity to find an easier catch is less dangerous to its survival and leaves the scene. Does this make the lion a coward? No. It is acting in a perfectly natural manner to this specific encounter.

EXAMPLE: In primordial times humanoids who did not fear snakes were bitten by poisonous snakes more often than those who did fear them. As a result more of the fearless humanoids died of snakebite thereby not breeding as many offspring as those who DID fear the snakes; thus, the offspring of the fearful-of-snake individuals, which were more numerous (because their parents were able to breed more often simply because they lived longer), were more likely to carry the same gene which caused fear in their parent. Thus over millions of years there are today very, very few people who are not repulsed and/or frightened by snakes - even harmless snakes. It is a response which is is chiseled into our genetic makeup. In the overwhelming number of cases today LACK of fear of snakes is the result of conditioning through experience. People who do not fear snakes, much like firemen who do not fear going into a burning building, are educated in the knowledge of how to deal with this specific danger to the extent that the odds of survival have been assessed and found acceptable.

This is perhaps why we think so highly of courageous people who risk their lives to save another human being - because it is so unnatural to find such courage in the average population. Of course there are also idiots who take unnecessary risks for a thrill. They are what we might call "Darwin Award Candidates" who improve the human gene pool by eliminating themselves from potentially breeding and passing on their idiocy to their potential progeny.
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Post by Conycardoza »

Being able to control your fears is completely different than being fearless in my opinion. Being able to control your fears signify that something or someone is motivating you in that moment to control your fear. It doesnt mean you stopped being afraid it just meant that in that moment, no matter how long, you were able to surpass it. Being fearless means that something in your head or in your thoughts made you change your view and your perspective of that fear. It means that you looked at it from a whole new perspective which made it not so scary. For example some people are terrified of spiders but some of them realize how much bigger we are to them or realize that most of them are harmless. Whereas they used to think about how they run fast or the fact that they can bite people and things like that. But once they changed perspective and viewed their fear in a different way it didnt terrify them.
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Post by Tanaya »

Learning to control one's fear is one of the most difficult things to do. I think fearlessness is conditional and a response to one's environment versus being innate.
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Post by The Book Reviewer »

Fear is a necessary part of life. Without fear there would be no love, no hate, no emotion; for all these require an element of fear.
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Post by courtney8847 »

I do not believe that anyone can be truly fearless, but that fear can be controlled. Being fearless would mean that there is absolutely nothing for someone to fear, where as learning to control your fears, you can overcome them but they do still exist.
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Post by RooneysReviews »

Fearlessness can be truly dangerous. When someone is fearless, they do not understand the consequences of their actions. They do not worry that they can get hurt or that they may hurt others. Learning to control fear is when someone can understand the situation they're in and make a logical decision without letting that fear impair the mind. Discipline and maturity is what allows fear to be mastered, while not having fear means a lack of situational awareness.
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Post by VinuW »

I've read that we are born with two fears - of falling and of loud noises. Apparently the single aim of these inborn fears is to keep humans alive and motivated in order to avoid potential dangers. These two fears are incorporated in the human DNA and have become a mechanism for survival which is passed to new generations. Therefore, I don't believe that people can be fearless. But I do believe that people can learn to control their fears.
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Post by doyle5 »

Fearless- being afraid of nothing. Controlling you fears- Overcoming your fears a step at a time.
No one is completely fearless. If they were then there is something mentally wrong with them. Fear is what drives so to fulfill our basic needs. We eat because we are afraid of starvation and dying. We fight because we are afraid of being the weakest one, being at other peoples mercy. We have children because we don't want to be forgotten. These basic need are already fears. Then there are the unneeded fears: heights, spiders, the dark, flushing toilet sounds...(yes, people are afraid of that...) These unneeded fears can be for no reason. Yet, we still develop these fears because we had a traumatizing experience where we felt we were the the object of fear's mercy. The act of putting yourself in the position of facing that fear is the act of bravery. For instance, Even though I am 21 years old, I am terrified of heights. When ever I am put in a situation where I need to be around heights I imagine that the empty place where I could fall is a glass flooring and the only reason I can't not step out onto the glass flooring is because I am playing a continual game of 'Lava' (If you don't know this childhood game then your childhood wasn't very imaginative). That is what Tris means when she says that “half of bravery is perspective. It is the ability to twist the illusion of fear into something positive.
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Post by DarkestbeforeDawn »

There is actually a medical condition, damage to a certain part of your brain can actually make person completely without fear because the brain is incapable of registering the neurotransmitter. So it is perfectly possible for a human being to function and be fearless. I am not so sure that is a great thing however, because fear is a natural human emotion. It engages with adrenaline and activates the "fight or flight" instinct. However, fear also could potentially inhibit the logical thought process and make people reckless.
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Post by steampunk_girl »

I believe that being fearless is someone who hasn't a fear.

Whilst learning to control your fears means that you would be learning to keep your fears in check, making you seem fearless.

Overall learning to control your fears would mean your fears are still there but being controlled whilst being fearless means you simply don't have a fear.
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