Every living thing must have fear or they would be dead already… meaning the species. Fear is a useful warning that live is dangerous, and every species is the food of another one.
So we have a reason to be afraid. In reality. Animals, cars, other people… all good reasons.
In reality fear is like a nudge. Lasts for a few moments. If you don’t pay attention: it will nudge you again. If the danger continues and you ignore the signs, it now turns the nudging on.
In the cave it is totally different. In the cave you your fear is almost totally continuous. Because in the cave reality and the idea of reality are not distinct, not separate, and you are insulated and separated from what is real.
In the cave your mind filters out most of the signals from reality, and replaces those signals with memory. memory of things that were maybe never real. With what you said, consciously or not consciously, about what actually happened.
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