Is fear a choice? What do you fear and why?

[Michael-5]

DeadNotSleeping said:

Michael-5 said:

DeadNotSleeping said:

You have decided that your fears are not optional, that they are hard-wired into your mind.  Therefore, they are so.  And you will never overcome them so long as you stand by your decision.  Any attempt to confront them will be challenged by the choice you have already made.  Since you believe that choice to be outside your ability to undo, you choose to be unable to overcome your fears.  That is how you've decided to apply your free will, though I cannot fathom why you insist on doing so.

And you have decided that you know the answer to what fear is and everyone else is wrong if they disagree with you.

You are telling me that fear is a decision, but I am in disagreement with you. Maybe you believe fear is a decision because you yourself have no true fears thus for you it's easy to tell people "just get over it."

I am telling you, respectfully, that you are incorrent, and when you attempt to convince me that your opinion is 100% correct, and mine is 100% wrong, and that I've decided on what to fear, all I see is a big ego.

No one is wrong for disagreeing with me.  I am not the measuring stick for correctness.  If someone is wrong, they are wrong for what they have concluded.  In other words, if you are wrong, you are not wrong for disagreeing with me.  You would be wrong simply because you have invested yourself in an incorrect position.

And I do have fears.  Fear is a rational emotion that serves a distinct and advantageous purpose for survival.  I can deactivate those fears whenever I find it prudent to do so, however, their current parameters are most beneficial.  Should I turn off my ability to experience fear entirely, once again I may lose perspective on my limitations and the consequences of my actions.  Imagine if you had the ability to deactivate your pain response.  Surely it would make some moments a lot more comfortable, but at the cost of awareness to injury.  Fear too has its purpose, I have learned.

Perhaps you truly are incapable of mastering your emotions.  Maybe my mind is special, a brain able to do more than what some people have the potential of accomplishing.  But until I see evidence that my mind is able to complete what other healthy minds are unable to perform, I will not accept that others are arbitrarily limited.  If I am wrong, it is because my faith in you is misplaced, not because emotions are beyond human ability to master.

If you can "deactivate those fears" at will, those aren't true fears, those are just situations you find uncomfortable.

You do sound like you have an ego, your mind isn't special, I just think what you think is fear, isn't. Fear isn't an emotional response you can control, imagine being married for 30 years and you find out your wife was cheating on you the whole time and she leaves you. You can't just turn off your emotions here and go "no biggie."

Also stop with the ego. How come I can be wrong, but you can't? Why can't you accept it as a possibility that fear is hard-wired into our brains? As a basic premordal no different then hunger. I could be wrong too, but I feel like this discussion was over from the begining because you decided what the truth was before our debate and are completly unwilling to accept that your view is just an opinion, and others disagree.