Fear is a large part of nature's built-in survival kit; depending on the situation, the fright flight or stand and fight deal kicks in- and hopefully saves whom-or-whatever. Without fear- we'd be in big trouble. The only thing we have to fear is lack of fear itself. But I know what you were saying Winston (whoops- I mean Frank)- do we give in to it or do we rise up and at least try and defeat it lest we be defeated?
Is fear different than phobia? According to the dictionary- a phobia is a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it. I think that most phobias are rational fears; like most things, there is just differing degrees of rationality to them- and anyway, some things people are phobic about are surely better avoided than not.

So some phobias are less rational than others- ex:, a fear of spiders is more rational than a fear of blowing one's nose (I have an uncle with this phobia- his son, my cousin, is shown in this detail of an illustration I did a few years back dealing with fear).










Umm- what else- well- fear of flying is more rational than a fear of going to the dentist (this uncle and his older sister, my aunt- both are extremely phobic in regards to visiting the dentist- as a result, both have lost most of their teeth)- oh- and they also both have a phobia of flying. My uncle's an intelligent (though he is a republican) and tough ex-marine who had flown many thousands of miles in his life. One day, while at the airport, he was watching all the planes etc. out on the tarmac, when suddenly a great fear came over him- since then- no more flying. Anyway- every phobia that I've touched on here can be rationalized to varying degrees-: many spiders can sting with a bite- and a few of them can kill, blowing one's nose can be dangerous too: Beware Nose Blowing - I don't know if it could cause an aneurism or whatnot. Also, we all know the dangers of flight- and the dentist can be painful, and in rare cases life threatening.
When we don't fight at all due to fear, as Winston warned against- fear defeats us-- we can lose our teeth- our ability to breathe through our noses- our ability to travel easily- and on and on- this all kinda leans towards the irrational- but I don't know- nothing's easy.
Anyhow- I guess a totally irrational fear would be the phobia of being terrorized by a dentist and a box of tissues on the wing of the plane while flying at 20,000 feet [TZone]. So you have to be crazy to have a true phobia? Well there's no such thing as crazy or weird- it's just differing degrees of normalcy.

















I have a few fears/phobias- the biggest being my fear of nothing- or I should say- nothingness.














I don't fear last week's topic- "change'--- just the opposite- I'm phobic of monotony. I tried a change in style w/the wing monsters illo- a few hundred more and I may or may not get the hang of it- but I'll be ready for another change. I do fear I've gone on way too long enough here, and probably had many lapses in making any sense--- so I'll shut up here already!