9 Comments on Coping With Your Persistent Fears

♥♠ Ace ♠♥ on Sat, 1st May 2010 7:34 pm


Can I be the perfect balance? Of course I like change from modern society memes but I’m currently really happy with my beliefs and perceptions, I don’t want to change those too radically unless I found something I like even better and I wouldn’t be bored with the repetition of it.

I like being able to change, but knowing when it’s necessary, and when it’s unneeded.

This question is lonely, c’mon people.
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Jon M dn ǝpıs sıɥʇ on Sat, 1st May 2010 7:36 pm


As a kid, my life pretty much sucked swamp water, so I loved change. Now that I’m older, it’s pretty good, so I’m suspect of change. I don’t really think any big changes are going to be for the better.
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fractal on Sat, 1st May 2010 7:38 pm


well, i would say that, like ace, i am extremely fond of equilibrium (as a word and as concept). i do not fear the new, i am sometimes irrationally seduced by it but i have no loathing of tradition and rituals (i believe they serve some very good and noble and practical purposes). you know that balance is where it’s at… you acknowledge so in the latter part of your question. personality-wise, i think outsiders are much at judging such things, we generally tend to see ourselves as we wish to be rather than as we actually are (not everyone, of course).

this question is lonely! why did it take me such a long time to spot it (i only did so because i thought you were being unusually quiet my friend…)

(((davey, jon m and angels)))

methinks you might be misinterpreting me, but i am not certain of that… yes, i am all for embracing change, when the change is not change for the sake of change but change for the sake of improvement – which, again, we can get into a whole massive discussion with a postmodernist twist, if it so takes your fancy, about what represents said improvement and whether change for its own sake can sometimes be worth it – in terms of acting as a catalyst… but my brain is a little tired just now – so i’m going to go and recuperate and i’ll catch you and your hopping mad brilliance later
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The angels have the Arc Light. on Sat, 1st May 2010 7:40 pm


I’m very interested by the process of change in long-standing traditions and how different people/groups involved will make different choices on what to change and what to retain. I’m also interested in the dynamics of individual choice and the role of communities.

Like in traditional musics, the individual musicians put loads of their ideas out there. The community will embrace some of the ideas to a greater extent than others, and those will tend to be repeated (by individual musicians and teachers) until some become a standard part of the tradition.

Shall we say I’m a student of the evolution of social forms?
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(((Jon M, fractal)))

Michael on Sat, 1st May 2010 7:42 pm


Every experience contains novelty if a person is paying attention. And these experiences fall into familiar patterns as we get older and, hopefully, wiser. Change is simply part of my existence. I neither like nor dislike it. I do love life. But this part of it falls under the ‘take it as it comes’ heading. Novelty is neither sought for its own sake, nor avoided as an evil. At least, that’s what I do.

Having said all this, I’m passionate about learning. So I suppose I’m closer to the first option than the second.

peace
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Ambivalent LAUghter on Sat, 1st May 2010 7:44 pm


Interesting question. Just to note that the first time I ever heard the word ‘neophobe’ was in relation to rats – I was advised that, since rats are neophobes, changing the environment constantly was a good way to keep them away/persuade them to leave.

As a child, I was very powerfully neophobic (but not a rat). I didn’t want anything to change. I wanted Christmas always to be the way our (atheist) family always celebrated it, and wouldn’t accept a different meal, ritual of present-opening etc.

In my late teens and twenties, I was neophilic to a considerable fault. I was a revolutionary, a drug experimenter, a lambaster of all tradition and custom.

Now I’m 60, life is much more balanced, but I’d say I have some areas in which I am extremely neophobic (I just can’t tolerate the idea of my kitchen being ‘reorganised’ by any visitors – I hate it when people put the mugs away in the wrong place, although I am not comfortable with myself about this…) and others in which I delight in the new and different, and still tend to be something of an iconoclast. I’ll question anything, try many things, willingly take reasonable risks etc.

Religiously, this means that I have wanted a religion that has links to tradition – a sense of the validity of something tried and tested – but is totally open to new ways of understanding and interpreting, and lacking in rigidity. Hence, UK Reform Judaism (it would have been Reconstructionist if I were in the USA).
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Pedestal42 on Sat, 1st May 2010 7:46 pm


I’m probably on the neophobe side of the divide, while picking and choosing those elements, mainly advances in pure technology, where I can consider change to equal progress.
I have a broadband internet conection and an new car that can do 50 MPG at motorway speeds.
But I need no mobile phone, as yet. The answerphone is an older new invention that serves quite adequately.

Total neophiles tend to frighten me.
The simple equating of "new" with "better" to me is utterly naive.
And this goes double for the worlds of fashion and music where, by and large, "the latest thing" is king. Whatever it is.

But as far as theology goes, I’m more of an iconoclast!
A tradition (ritual, rite, doctrine…) is not of value of itself, only if it embodies something of solid value.
But that doesn’t make me an automatic fan of the new either, in this area: that can be just as empty in its depths as it is lively and fresh on the surface.
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Mr. Spencer on Sat, 1st May 2010 7:48 pm


Neophilic.

I find comfort in familiarity, but sanity with new experiences.

*side note: I like Michael’s answer as well.
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Just another Davey..... on Sun, 2nd May 2010 3:32 am


Religiously speaking, do you lean towards Neophilia, or Neophobia?
Neophilia is basically a love of novelty. A Neophilic personality "can be defined as a personality type characterized by a strong affinity for novelty. Neophiles/Neophiliacs have the following basic characteristics:
* The ability to adapt rapidly to extreme change
* A distaste or downright loathing of tradition, repetition, and routine
* A tendency to become bored quickly with old things
* A desire, bordering on obsession in some cases, to experience novelty
* A corresponding and related desire to create novelty by creating or achieving something and/or by stirring social or other forms of unrest."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neophile

Neophobia is the opposite. Basically a fear of novelty.
"In psychology, neophobia is defined as the persistent and abnormal fear of anything new. In its milder form, it can manifest as the unwillingness to try new things or break from routine. Mild manifestations are often present in young children (who want the small portion of the world that they "know" to remain constant) and elderly people (who often cope using long established habits and don’t want to learn "new tricks")"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neophobia
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Of course no one is completely Neophilic or Neophobic in every situation. I don’t think it would be possible to survive in the modern world if we were. But we do all sit somewhere between the two, and obviously that means closer to one point than the other. So in your own opinion, which personality trait do you identify with most strongly?

If you can’t see how this relates to religion, then you should probably keep quiet about that. You don’t want to look silly, unless you’re Fireball of course

Thanks.
Interesting answers everyone.

There’s a bit of talk about balance, which is fair enough. But I think the perception of maintaining balance can sometimes be confused with maintaining your current lifestyle, thought processes…etc

I mean things change, there’s no escaping that. So wouldn’t the balanced position be to be generally accepting of that change rather than dismissing it as "unneeded"(Ace) and "irrationally seduced"(Fractal)?

Of course not all change is positive, and not all change is compulsory. So picking and choosing which changes you’re going to accept is necessary at times. I do think we all need to make sure that these decisions aren’t based on personal fears though

Michael – Remind me to give you BA
((Fractal)) – Yeah you’re edit was more along the lines I was thinking. I do think change for it’s own sake is often worth it, probably more often than not actually. It comes down to perception, I think. Perception that your current experience is better or worse than a previous one, and so a perception of the change being better or worse. Perception is a fickle thing though. Some subtle piece of new information can change it completely. So it could actually be that all change is positive, and that we just lack the information to perceive it as such. We all accept that some change effects us positively, and that other changes effect us negatively. This isn’t universally agreed upon though. Some people deal with what we would perceive as negative change, positively. And others struggle with what we might perceive as positive change, negatively. Perception does seems to be the main difference between negative and positive change

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