Fear

Fear is pain without an existing cause. There is something potentially existing in the future; it doesn’t exist now and it may never exist, but it is causing pain. If it existed now, it wouldn’t cause fear. What it is then, this dread that has no real object?

In the present, pain is just pain. Whether you think about it or not, it is there, and it hurts. It is real.

The past is gone, but the loss may still be felt, for its result is still present. The past therefore exists in the present and causes pain.

The painful object of the future is uncertain. If you knew it would come and knew its exact nature, it wouldn’t cause fear. You are afraid of getting sick, but once you are sick, that fear is gone. Therefore, it is the uncertainty itself, the lack of reality that causes the pain. What then can you do? Make what you fear happen?

Sometimes a non-existing object causes more pain than it would if it had existed: Sometimes the fear itself is worse then the object of fear. Then, you have nothing to lose if you let it happen.

Sometimes even, the object of fear is so unrealistic that even if it were to happen, its shape would be completely different from anything imagined.

Fear is sometimes shapeless. Its object is a cloud which would be meaningless even if it existed. What are you afraid of then? “I don’t know, I’m just afraid.” Then do walk closer. Approach the cloud and let it enclose you. It is water and air and nothing else: no substance.

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Man is an irrational animal. Why else would we make up ideas that contradict our own logic and belief and choose to suffer from them.

https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2020/06/24/your-daily-word-prompt-afraid-ydwordprompt-June-24-2020/