Coping with Fear

It is a part of human nature to learn and adopt new ideas. According to Charles Darwin, humans continuously have been putting utmost efforts into understanding our environment and nature in order to survive and prevail on earth. It seems clear that we have invented and created countless notions and new technologies throughout history. By studying and understanding, we have overcome many stumbling blocks of our ancestors and learned several strategies of coping with the fear of the powerful or the unknown such as wild animals, diseases, natural disasters and other situations or factors that were once considered as a threat. With the help of empirical knowledge, It seems as if we are capable of understanding things beyond the domain of human beings. We are able to see, interpret and predict things millions of light-years away from us. We even started to manipulate our own genes and other genetic factors. Marie Curie asserts, "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood." It seems as though there is nothing we cannot understand on the basis of the knowledge gained from modern science today. Any unknown object can be categorized and interpreted based on hypotheses we have formulated. However, there are things that will never be understood by humans such as death and the existence of a soul; thus, understanding based on our science and logic can help us to conceptualize fundamental aspects of fear, but it is nearly impossible to completely overcome it through understanding.

We often deal with fearful moments and events in life. Some may experience events that threaten danger such as a car accident or robbery. Some may fear encountering certain animals or insects. The way of conceptualizing fear varies depending on one's personality and tendencies. It is true that we can easily cope with our fear by studying and understanding the consequences that will follow after encountering the events, circumstances or objects of our fear. But where does our fear truly come from? Some psychologists may argue that it is linked to our childhood environment, and some may believe that fear is only a part of our innate emotions such as joy and sadness. But why do we fear? What is the worst that can happen? Ultimately, it is death that we fear. The worst consequence we would wind up facing in the vast majority of events or things we fear, is death. We fear car accidents, diseases or wild animals because they can kill us. We respond to what we consider external threats because they can harm us by jeopardizing our life.

The concept of death has been utilized as a tool to control and sustain the social order by imposing it on ones who violate laws. It is the worst punishment that can be given to an individual because it is something that we all fear and we want to avoid with all our will and might. Most people tend to perceive death as a negative aspect of life, and it is taboo to utter the word in some cultures. Although