Paul Nervy Notes
“Jokes, poems, stories, and a lot of philosophy, psychology, and sociology.”


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Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  .This section is about fear.  Topics include: ( ) Apprehension.  ( ) Anxiety.  ( ) Fear.  ( ) Guilt.  ( ) Paranoia.  ( ) Regret.  ( ) Worry.  ---  1/24/2006


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Against nervousness, fear, anxiety and panic is thoughtful, brave action.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Anxiety can be reduced by physical and mental effort.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Anxiety is just as important a negative emotion as depression and anger.  Where does all the anxiety come from?  How to recognize anxiety?  How to deal with anxiety?  Anxiety can rip you apart if you let it.  ---  1/4/2000


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Anxiety.  (1) Conscious.  Unsubstantiated on subject or situation.  Unsubstantiated amount.  (2) Unconscious.  Unsubstantiated stress reaction.  Unsubstantiated due to a chain of transference.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Anxiety.  (1) Fear and cowardice of what is.  (2) Fear and cowardice of what will be, either (A) Necessarily, definite, or (B) possible: what could be, or (C) Fear of what couldn't be: the impossible (irrational fears).  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Anxiety.  Apprehension, anxiety, and worry about the future is really just fear of the future.  So I seem to have a lot of fear.  Am I a scaredy cat?  Or is fear sometimes natural and even justified?  Does fear help one from making stupid, rash mistakes?  ---  05/30/1996


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Anxiety.  Causes: unconscious and conscious unresolved dilemmas, or resolved dilemmas solved wrong.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Anxiety.  General anxiety vs. specific anxiety.  Founded anxiety vs. unfounded anxiety.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Anxiety.  Physical bracing (muscle tension) and psychological bracing (nervous tension) in the face of fear and apprehension.  ---  08/17/1997


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Anxiety.  The best and only way to counter anxiety is with a slow, deep, burning anger.  Samurai calm.  Rage contained, fury controlled, just barely.  ---  11/15/1994


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Anxiety.  The way to deal with anxiety and its bad effects is to get tough with yourself and with life.  My anxiety level is normally way too high.  ---  04/04/1994


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Confidence vs. disregard.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Ethics and emotions.  When we do bad things, they automatically cause guilt and paranoia in all of us.  It can really bother you, and even drive you psychotic.  This is one reason why murderers confess.  Humans are strange creatures.  ---  02/15/1997


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear causes avoidance, repression, neurosis and anxiety.  (1) Is fear learned?  Or is fear the result when one does not learn bravery?  (2) Is there a gene for fearfulness?  Is there a gene for fearlessness?  ---  7/27/1998


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear incapacitates by destroying ability to use mind well, thus avoiding problems that need to be confronted.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear inhibits and represses action, and thus leads to unhealth.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear is repressive when it keeps us from doing good and healthy, or when it keeps us doing bad and unhealthy.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear is sometimes used as a political, psychological weapon to keep people from thinking and acting.  To keep people docile and in line.  To make people conform.  Fear tactics are sometimes used by power holders to control the disempowered.  Be like a rock climber, I say, and use the personal experience of fear to achieve goals.  ---  1/10/2004


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear is the major factor that prevents us from learning and doing to our full capabilities.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear keeps people from growing as much as it keeps them surviving.  Hinders as much as helps.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear leads to avoidance (especially fear of unknown).  Fear of unknown and how to approach it vs. fear of known.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear of doing x, due to fear of change for better or worse, due to achieving it or not.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear of present threat vs. fear of a (possible or certain) future threat (a.k.a. apprehension).  ---  9/25/2000


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear of what is vs. fear of what could be.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  (1) Anxiety is fear.  Fear is being a pussy.  Be a man, be strong.  Gain full information, then reason things out, then do the right thing, and then don't worry about it.  Fight calmly, and don't cry about it.  Do not fag out, runaway, or escape, or avoid.  Anxiety is crying for help, or for self pity.  (2) In a world of freak accidents, how can one rationally live without fear, without ignoring reality?  Like a soldier.  Pay your buck, take your chances.  (3) When uncertainty or fear or comfort makes you pull back from 100% drive toward goals, that is wussing out.  ---  07/01/1994


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  (1) Fear is an emotion.  Cowardice is a behavior.  Cowardice does not mean having no fear.  Cowardice means caving in to fear.  (2) Fearlessness is an emotion (or lack of emotion).  Bravery is a behavior.  Bravery does not mean being fearless.  Bravery means not caving into fear.  (Can you be brave without being fearful?  A good question.)  ---  2/25/1999


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  (1) Fear of being acted upon.  (2) Fear of acting.  Fear of making wrong move in a situation.  Leads to no move, which is a failure in and of itself.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  (1) Fear of being punished for all the wrong things I have done leads to psychological stress and physical tension which I try to blow off by hurting or punishing myself.  (2) Fear of injury and old age lead me to injure myself, because you just want to get it over with.  (3) Strong belief in argument that the combined chances of all the possible ways to get hurt means no one can avoid getting hurt or even survive can lead one to end up hurting themselves to try to prove themselves right.  ---  12/30/1996


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  (1) Genetic predisposition to fear.  (2) Learned predisposition to fear and meekness.  Unassertive.  Unconfrontational.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  (1) Healthy fears(?) and concerns.  (2) Unhealthy fears and concerns.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  (1) What increases fears?  Low t, tired, no energy, ignorance, inexperience, stress.  (2) What decreases fear?  high t, knowledge.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Absence of fear = calm?  Especially in the face of danger and death.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Because fear is a learned response, one has to relearn how not to be afraid.  ---  5/5/2004


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Believing you know or can do, faith in self, reduces fear even when that belief is a lie or an illusion.  Therefore, do we have a duty to lie to ourselves?  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Big fear: to think you could work your whole life and get nowhere, accomplish nothing.  ---  06/30/1993


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Causes of fear: in general and in me.  Not knowing what's going on now.  Not knowing what's going to happen in future.  Partially or totally.  Not believing you know: when you do vs. even when you don't.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Contra fear: brave, rational, action to satisfy drives.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  How scared you are unconsciously and consciously.  How much you express it, consciously and unconsciously.  Degree you are able to control your emotional expression.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  I unconsciously, greatly fear transitions, change, and the unknown.  Unconscious anticipatory fear causes my accidents and illnesses.  ---  12/30/1996


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  If fear is an emotion, then is bravery an emotion?  Or is bravery just a lack of fear.  Is bravery a lack of emotion?  No, that's not it.  If bravery was a lack of fear, then happiness would be a lack of sadness, which it is not.  ---  11/5/1999


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  If you feel fear, the best you can do is: Know you feel fear.  Know about what.  Know why.  Know what can do about it.  Know what's best to do about it.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Life is truly horrifying when you think of all the things that have, do, can, will, could go wrong.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Not afraid, just concerned.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Opposite of fear is confidence.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  What are my top fears and anxieties?  Disease.  Loss of pad, job, car.  Destruction, decay, loss, stolen of property.  Growing old, growing limp dick.  Being a wimp.  Sexually inadequate: size, performance.  Lack of sex and love, women.  Fear of being controlled by others.  Fear of the future.  Jail, busted for crimes uncommitted.  Going insane.  Fear of perceived enemies.  Fear of crime victimization.  Fear of being abused, verbally or physically.  Fear of confrontation, verbal or physical.  Fear of marriage, of kids.  Money, poverty.  Injury.  Unemployment, homelessness.  Burglary, fire.  Death, disease.  Loneliness.  Natural disaster.  Social attack, social reprisal.  Failure.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Why are some neurotics fearful?  Because they are insecure.  Why are they insecure?  A remnant from a childhood spent with neurotic parents.  Neurosis is both learned and inherited.  ---  3/25/2000


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Fear.  Wimpiness is a combination of fearfulness and excessive subordination to authority.  Both fear and subordination cause repression and neurosis, so wimps are doubly prone to neurosis.  (1) Excessive subordination (i.e., too much super-ego) is essentially rule-following and it causes neurosis by replacing the independent mind and independent action with blind belief and blind obedience.  (2) Excessive fear causes neurosis by inhibiting mind and action.  Excessive fear also causes neurosis by adding stress to the mind.  ---  3/24/2000


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Guilt is a form of anxiety, often unconsciously transferred to another object.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Guilt: depression and fear over past acts done by you.  Two types:  (1) Acts that went against social norms (fear).  (2) Acts that went against personal norms (depression).  (3) Amount you feel vs. amount it is justified.  Amount it incapacitates you.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Guilt: religious vs. non religious.  Could have, would have, should have thoughts.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Guilt.  "I didn't do the best or all that I could have".  Lack of clear conscience.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Guilt.  I feel (1) Selfish and then evil and then guilty, or else just (2) Not worthy (due to my flaws, etc.) and then not meant to succeed, whenever I try to be competitive and succeed.  Then I punish myself for these feelings, or else sabotage myself so I don't succeed.  This often happens unconsciously.  To get around this, tell yourself you are trying to make the world a better place more than others are, and thus you deserve to succeed more than they do.  ---  12/30/1996


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Guilt.  What percentage of guilt is fear of punishment by god, society, or self?  What percentage of guilt is desire for punishment by same?  ---  12/30/1996


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Guilt=fear+apprehension.  For example, "You did wrong"+"Its going to come back and bite you (karma)."  ---  9/25/2000


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Have self confidence to handle self and situation, at present and in future.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  In one sense, to worry is to second guess oneself, to be skeptical of one's thought, to doubt one's actions.  Skepticism and doubt are healthy, and thus worry is healthy.  After all, who doesn't worry?  People who never second-guess themselves do not worry, and these people are called psychopaths.  Heedless sociopaths gleefully jeopardize the lives of others.  So a little worry is good.  ---  11/16/2004


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Know about the situation.  Know what you want from it and not.  Know how to get it and not.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Nervousness is an energy.  Physical energy levels.  Mental energy levels.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Nervousness. (1) Excitability (any emotion).  (2) Anxiety.  (3) Fear.  (4) What is the deal with nervousness?  ---  01/01/1994


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Panic.  Don't panic.  Don't go into shock (can't or won't think, say, or do).  Say anything, do anything.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Paranoia = fear of humiliation, ridicule, or reprisal.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Paranoia defined as unreasonable fears.  What fears are unreasonable?  (1) The world has many malicious, sadistic people who harm others for kicks.  (2) People can mistake you for someone else who they hate and then harm you by mistake.  (3) People who are prejudiced will harm you just for belonging to a group they are bigoted against.  (4) So what is an unreasonable fear?  ---  6/20/2002


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Paranoia.  (1) Causes.  (2) Effects: makes you act wacky.  (3) Solutions to avoid it.  (A) About sex: be perfectly normal?  (B) About x: See a shrink?  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Paranoia.  (1) Paranoia defined as unreasonable fears.  What fears are unreasonable?  Impossibilities?  (2) How does paranoia differ from anxiety?  How short a step is it from anxiety to paranoia?  ---  6/20/2002


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  PTSD.  To recover from PTSD.  (1) Learning not to get scared.  (2) Learning to control your fear once you get scared.  (3) Relearning not to be afraid as an after effect in similar situations.  ---  1/8/2004


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Regret.  To avoid regret do your best.  Total effort, in optimal state, all the time.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  The opposite of fear does not have to be bravery.  The opposite of fear can be happiness and tranquility.  ---  1/4/2004


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  What is the difference between fear, anxiety, panic and paranoia?  What is the difference between a panic attack and a paranoia attack?  ---  3/22/2000


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Worry = fear + guilt.  Both are worthless.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Worry is essentially fear.  Who me worry?  ---  11/30/1997


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Worry, anxiety, fear, trepidation, paranoia, guilt, regret.  To avoid them, do your best at everything.  Think things through.  If it is truly beyond your control, don't worry about it.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Worry.  At what point does reasonable concern become needless worry?  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Worry.  Not worrying or refusing to worry is an act of bravery, a good thing.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Worry.  To avoid worrying, mentalize and act best you can on your goals.  Rest is up to fate.  ---  12/30/1992


Psychology, emotion, specific, fear.  ---  Worry.  When things don't worry you enough vs. when things worry you too much.  ---  12/30/1992




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Paul Nervy Notes. Copyright 1988-2007 by Paul Nervy.