Fear Is The Mind Killer

Name taken from FrankHerbert's BeneGesserit LitanyAgainstFear.

Fear is working to avoid thinking about something. Yet because this work reminds you that there is something you don't want to think about, it's self-sustaining. So fear keeps your mind working, but chains it in place like a treadmill. And while you're on that treadmill, you're not thinking constructively.

Sometimes the time you take to get off fear's treadmill is the time you needed to avoid the events that scare you. Hence the use of the litany - the sooner you face your fear, let it pass over and through you - let it transform you - the more time you'll have for rational action.

It is often hard to recognize that you are in fear. You have to train yourself to notice it, and train yourself to respond rationally to it. Otherwise it'll control you when you can least afford it.

Now see, I always thought the little death was something else entirely!

Maybe in France...

(In France, 'the little death' is a figure of speech for an orgasm.)

"The secret of life is this: When you hear the sound of the cannons, walk toward them" -- MarcelFrance?

Very good advice... most forms of artillery have minimum ranges

Not necessarily; to break through the Siegfried Line at the end of World War II, the Allies would take Howitzers and level them at the bunkers. The shell was pretty much guaranteed to penetrate, and anyone not killed by the blast was incapacitated by the concussion (and lack of oxygen, I think). Almost makes me feel sorry for them. Anyway, considering that 19th-century cannons were similarly fired through massed ranks of soldiers, I don't think safety is what Mr. France had in mind.

I lost to fear on my last project. It made me regress to non-XP ways of doing things, which of course wasted lots of time (finding bugs, reproducing bugs, seeing where the bug got started...). Lack of sleep and sincere belief that "this is the last thing to do" also contributed, I suppose. I think I doubled the number of sunrises I've seen.

So ... how would you use the litany against ViralFear?