Being fearless versus learning to control your fears?

Discuss the June 2014 book of the month Divergent by Veronica Roth. While only Divergent--the first book of the series--is the book of the month, feel free to use this subforum to discuss the rest of the series or to talk about the movies, but make sure not to post spoilers unless noted in the topic title.
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ipekbunsal
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Re: Being fearless versus learning to control your fears?

Post by ipekbunsal »

Learning control your fears. That should be better than fearless. But I don't think there is much of a difference between them.
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Post by colemaba »

I think it is better to learn to control your fears because being fearless can result in some dangerous and bad behavior. It is like you have nothing to tie you to reality or to the fact that you can die. Being learning to control your fears allows you to still be brave, but to understand what your actions mean.
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Post by cjmayes118 »

Being fearless almost seems like a false sense of bravery. A rush of adrenaline and almost anyone can be fearless if the need arises. Controlling your fears takes practice and concentration. This is something that is developed over time and is not onset by a" fight or flight" mentality. I don't think anyone can be truly fearless because there will always be an element of unknown facts in our lives. For instance, no one knows for certain what happens to a person when they die. The fact that there are unknowns means that there is room for our minds to create situations to fill in the missing pieces, situations that often cause us to become fearful. Tris nailed it on the head when she said, "Half of bravery is perspective." Perspective changes every situation. When an army wants to have the upper hand in the battle, they seek to gain the highest ground. This helps to alleviate the need to increase worry because you know you have the better advantage. When you lift your perspective, you elevate your mind to truly see your situation for what it is and can manage it better.
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Post by MatthewAlexander »

The difference between being fearless and learning to control your fears is one is realistic and the other isn't. No one that I've ever met has been fearless. Everyone is afraid of something, whether they want to admit it or not. Learning to control your fears, however, is realistic and very brave. It's taking the things that scare you and making you the boss of them. Controlling them means they can't control and cripple you.
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Post by cdisenberg »

I think that being fearless can be dangerous and is sometimes just a part of youth. In some ways when we are young we feel like we are indestructible. However, not having fear control you is a work in progress and is something I think we all strive for well into older age.
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Post by cyndiha11 »

Being fearless = forging ahead, regardless of consequences.

Learning to control your fears = overcoming the urge to run and hide.

Can anyone be truly fearless? Yes. Mostly people who are unaware or who don’t care about the consequences of their actions.

I think what Tris means by ‘half of bravery is perspective’ is that it takes some courage to realize someone else’s point of view about a certain issue, hearing them out, and making a decision based on all available information rather than on emotion and ‘what would be most brave’.
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Post by MichaelMoretti »

I think that we need to separate 'fear' as a state of mind and 'fear' as a reaction to a danger. That said , the concept of 'fearless' takes two different directions. One could be fearless of danger with a good amount of bravery, although that same amount of bravery won't help the same person with a 'state of mind' fear. A state of mind fear is much like the fear of the dark, or all the phobias, in which a person feels fear even with no imminent danger. In this last case, bravery is nothing but an act, the feared person doesn't show fear but feels it anyway. Such fears can be 'defeated' only by facing them at another level, by detecting the inner source of a fear and dealing with it. Strangely, it takes more bravery to deal with an imaginary fear than it does with an imminent danger.
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Post by mkostecki11 »

I think that being someone who is fearless implies not being afraid of the consequences of a situation/action. This can be due to anything from naiveté to experience in the matter and doesn't say anything about a person's character other than maybe a tendency for recklessness. Whereas having a certain fear, or even many, and being able to deal with the situation despite that shows strength and courage. The cause of the fear itself does not matter; facing your fear with fearlessness does.
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Post by hollirm »

I really like this question, I believe that everyone has fears and its unhealthy to try to remove all your fears. Fear was given to us for a reason, its there to protect us. For example, a child, puts their hand on a burner on the stove and gets burnt. The child learns to not put their hand on the burner because they don't want to get burnt again, this is driven by their fear of being burnt. The trick about fears is that its ok to have them, but you can't let them run your life, or should I say ruin your life. Lets go back to the example above, if the child grows up to fear the stove all together, afraid to be near it for fear of being burnt, regardless of the situation(cooking, stove not even on, etc.), this is driven by a phobia. A phobia is basically when you fear sometime so much that it effects your life. A phobia is what you need to try to avoid not fear. Because if you become this hypothetical 'fearless', whats to stop you from walking down a dark ally in the middle of the night, where you know shady things happen? Fear is there to help you understand that walking down that ally is probably a bad idea, and could save your life.
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Post by Phoebe Moon »

Some degree of fear is required as it keeps us safe.

I think that all fear evolves from the fear of death. Our ego wants to stamp it's mark on the world and the idea of death is the scariest thing because ego believes that to die is to no longer exist.

I think that learning to control fear, therefore, is learning to control fear of death. Becoming spirtual will do that. Buddha for example was fearless. He was fearless because he knew there is not really any such thing as death. When you're no longer scared of death there's no more reason to be scared of heights or spiders etc... Have you ever met anyone that has had a near death experience? They have this strange calm aura about them. And they say they are no longer scared of death.
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Post by lindac1_98 »

I think being fearless and controlling your fears are on and the same. If you are be to control your fear to be able to get a task completed then that is being fearless. We all have fears but being able to over them makes you fearless.
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Post by athyvip »

I think anyone who is truly fearless is just plain stupid. There are plenty of things that SHOULD be feared, and fear is a natural alarm system that lets us know when to be prepared to take action, and actual makes physical changes in the body to prepare us to take that action. Courage has nothing to do with not experiencing fear. It's about what you do with the fear.

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I think this sums it all up. If a lion is coming at you, it would be ridiculous to be calm and wait for it to rip you apart. In the dauntless training, rather than trying to become fearless, they should've learned to a) control the fear or b) turn it into adrenaline and channel it.
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Post by unicorny07 »

Being fearless means nothing bothers you or gets to you. Controlling your fears means something still phases you, but you have the strength to push through it and persevere. I don't believe anyone could truly be fearless. You just learn to push through. It may not feel like you're afraid anymore, but if you were fearless you wouldn't have to put forth the effort of getting through it.
"Half of bravery is perspective" means to be brave you have to look at the situation in a way that gives you the ability to overcome your fear.
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Post by jkclay1 »

I don't honestly believe that a person can be completely fearless. In a way it means they can't truly live. They say to truly live, one must overcome their fears. If you are without fear you can not do that. You would just being going through life with any emotional tribulations. If you think about it fear is in every part of our life, it can be a motivator or a hindrance. Tris is correct when she says that, “half of bravery is perspective." You can't be brave without having fear. Bravery is conquering ones fears. Now to overcome fear that requires a completely different perspective. To overcome fear you have to gain perspective on your situation, without it you can't be brave. To be brave you have to know something better is coming, that you can truly overcome your fear and become brave. Life is all about perspective, just like bravery, fear, love, success, etc.
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Post by ravenclaw »

I think fear is a good thing. That being said, I would tend to lean on learning to control your fears rather than being fearless. Learning to control your fears is more of a monumental task/adjective rather than being fearless.
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