Hi, David and Troupe:)

Fascinating discussion.  Thanks, David, for disclosing so personally to start it off.

As has been mentioned, we react to what we perceive, rather than simply to what is, and that lies at the base of the immobilizing fear so many of us have experienced.

The comment about not really knowing how you will react until you experience something is also worth emphasizing.    The younger we are, the more likely we are to paint a braver and more ethical picture of our hypothetical behavior.  As we age, we gain experience and tend to modify our internal image.   Our brain gets smarter, at least to some degree.

However, another angle on this is that we sometimes become overcautious as we gain experience.  When one knows that drinking and driving can be dangerous, we might become fearful of any instance of drinking and driving.  Parents experience this when they allow their adolescents to venture forth without them.  The parent knows just how easily things can go wrong, while the adolescent is still protected by their youthful veneer.

I have experienced fear often enough in different situations to know that I am probably on the over-cautious side of the spectrum and no hero.   However, there is another way to consider fear than just in the physical sense.

I also know that I easily venture into areas where others fear to go because of emotional or psychological factors.  At various points in my life,  I have dealt head-on with people in trauma, grief, crisis, depression, and other situations which had most people literally running to get away.  On one campus, I was known as "Mr. Death" (to my staff only) because I was the usual point person for handling students, teachers, and staff members who had to be informed of the death of a loved one.

Not a place I wanted to be or enjoyed particularly, but I could deal with the raw emotion better than most.  I still remember vividly on several occasions lingering outside a door, wishing desperately for some valid reason to not knock on that door and do what I was there to do.

That said, losing someone I love is one of my greatest fears ...

Thanks for stirring the thinking AND feeling muscles up today.

John