Fear is always just one specific form of anticipation, and--because of its intrinsic future tense (tense future) fear is inextricably linked to uncertainty, possibility and the yet to be known. While dread is concerned with the devil one knows, fear is a fraudulent emotion pretending to predict some grim fate while in reality being merely the obsessions (instinctual but often unfounded) of the here and now. Perhaps by sourcing fear in the present, one can remove oneself from the future projection and evaluate the validity of one's anxiety. Perhaps one can, having weighed current circumstance with possible consequences, find a footing in reality that will mitigate the enervating effect of the irrational. Which leads to the question: Is fear ever rational? Perhaps caution or awareness is a better word for "rational fear."
"This journal is not a mere literary diversion. The further I progress, reducing to order what my past life suggests, and the more I persist in the rigor of composition--of the chapters, of the sentences, of the book itself--the more do I feel myself hardening in my will to utilize, for virtuous ends, my former hardships. I feel their power." --Jean Genet
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