A threatening place "Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place." Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist fearwisdom
We, their hearts "People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly." Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist dreamsfear
Litany Against Fear I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. Frank Herbert, Dune dune.fandom.com fearminddeath
There's a demon inside of you There's a demon inside of you – it's inside both of you. Look, everyone! This is what hatred looks like. This is what it does when it catches hold of you. It's eating me alive and very soon now it will kill me. Fear and anger only make it grow faster. Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke hatefear
Management and manipulation of fear More and more of daily life is governed by the management and manipulation of fear. A society can be judged by the risks to which it chooses to respond, the dangers it values, the targets it gives high priority. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan fearsociety
He hurries to the attic Here the conscious acts like a man who, hearing a suspicious noise in the cellar, hurries to the attic and, finding no burglars there, decides, consequently, that the noise was pure imagination. In reality, this prudent man did not dare venture into the cellar. Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul fearpsychology
A handful of dust There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land feardarkness
Lost purposes There’s chocolate at the supermarket, and you can get to the supermarket by driving, and driving requires that you be in the car, which means opening your car door, which needs keys. If you find there’s no chocolate at the supermarket, you won’t stand around opening and slamming your car door because the car door still needs opening. I rarely notice people losing track of plans they devised themselves. It’s another matter when incentives must flow through large organizations—or worse, many different organizations and interest groups, some of them governmental. Then you see behaviors that would mark literal insanity, if they were born from a single mind. Someone gets paid every time they open a car door, because that’s what’s measurable; and this person doesn’t care whether the driver ever gets paid for arriving at the supermarket, let alone whether the buyer purchases the chocolate, or whether the eater is happy or starving. Eliezer Yudkowsky, Rationality: From AI to Zombies So many tactics, so well entrenched metricsgoals