Fear, in a bunch of words.

I know I’ve said this before but it’s true, so I’ll say it again… Blank pages can be so intimidating.  I was going to say “are” instead of “can” however I changed it at the last second.  I didn’t want to be too final.  Intimidation is just a small form of fear right?  And someone famous said you have to over come your fears…Let’s look that up.  Franklin D. Roosevelt said “The only thing we to fear is fear itself.”  And Oscar Wilde said “The basis of optimisim is sheer terror.”   Lets take them one at a time.

First  FDR:  The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—All about overcoming fear in and of itself.  Essentially we must be afraid of fearing something.  Thus running in a vicious cycle no? The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself…Is it sort of a don’t be afraid because there is really nothing much to be afraid of?  go forth and prosper? If you have nothing to fear but fear itself, why fear it?  If I haven’t solved this one yet, I don’t think I’m going to. Let us move on.

Wilde: The basis of optimism is sheer terror–in a nutshell he’s saying there’s no where to go but up.  Light at the end of the tunnel? Maybe. When one door closes another opens? Possibly. The basis of a good outlook is having nothing left to lose.
Well this blank page isn’t so intimidating anymore. It’s filled with words. They may not mean much. But hey, they’re there.  Let’s take another topic. Okay, same topic, but I have a feeling it will take a totally different turn.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.   Actually maybe I won’t even touch this one.  To fear love….what kind of love?  Does it even matter? Do all forms of love apply here? Actually yes, I think ALL forms of love apply here.  Okay so let us continue.  To fear love is to fear life.  Fair enough, he’s equatting a life without love to being no life at all (The character of DaVinci in the movie Ever After–life is full of quotable cliches isn’t it!)  so if you don’t have love, you’re really not living a life, lest a full one.  Moving forward–those who fear life (I assume it’s assumed that if you fear life you also fear love…) those who fear life are already three parts dead… Here’s the conundrum, where do you get that fraction from? Three parts instead of three fourths obviously for poetic reasons… but three parts–wait a minute! who said four parts equal a whole?? Whoa, this thought train just took a huge halt at this fork in the road.  Why would the reader, why did I, assume that it’s three of four parts dead.  I think it’s fair to say that it has to be greater than 3 parts to make a whole by the mere use of the word ‘already’–I think it’s also fair to assume that 3 parts is greater than 50% of the whole as well, from usage of that same word.  Therefore we are left with either 4 or 5 parts being the whole. But which is it? I think for the answer to this question, we must look at some part of the human anatomy.  I do not know which part though.  I mean, the physical being as a ‘whole’ is complex in and of itself, nevermind trying to divide it into 4 or 5 pieces.  Perhaps because we are referencing love, we could assume its 3 parts of the heart.  But that wouldnt’ make sense because the actual heart, which has 4 atriums doesn’t really affect the love one can give or consume, it affects the oxygenation of blood and blood flow to the body.  The brain would be the place to go for emotion, and even then, how many parts of the brain are involved in the feeling of emotion?  Let’s ask my best G star. While she’s responding let us look up the proper usage of the words effect and affect. Okay well I have a better understanding of the different uses for the homonyms…and G star said it’s complicated as many parts are used, Therefore where were we? oh right, 3 parts… I don’t know where 3 parts comes from. I guess it’s best to assume that it’s 3 of 4 parts as it’s more compliant with today’s society. The next step to figuring out how many parts to a whole would be to figure out the time period in which the quote was coined and figure out what sorts of measuring systems were common to that culture. But I’m not going there.  Let me refresh the quote for us. To fear love is to fear life,
and those who fear life are already three parts dead.  Basically, don’t fear life, don’t fear love, don’t fear anything, even fear itself.