Blog #4 - Fear Unit Response #1 (Examining Fear)

- April 03, 2019

Blog Response Part A
Yesterday we watched (and read) a TED Talk about how fear can be a positive instead of a
negative. What do you find to be the most striking idea that author Karen Thompson
Walker shares in her speech? Why does this interest you?

Refer to the speech to include at least one piece of textual evidence to support your thoughts.
There are copies of the speech through the CommonLit program as well as a PDF file
posted on Classroom.

Blog Response Part B
Think about times that you have felt afraid. When has fear driven you to a positive outcome?
When has fear stopped you from being successful?

Choose a fear that has impacted you EITHER negatively OR positively and complete
the following:
*What was your fear?
*What was the "story" of your fear? What did you imagine might happen?
*What was the outcome? Did your fear help or hurt you?

REPLIES - DAY 2: Read through the posted blog comments. Reply to TWO: one you agree with and one that you disagree with and/or can followup with a clarifying question. Clearly explain why you agree or disagree with the author of the blog comment AND/OR explain your question in detail.

Comments

AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 10:00 AM
To be completely honest she didn't interest me at all, the idea of turning our fears into something positive isn't really anything new to me. I completely agree with her ideas, but that is some stuff that has been known, and anyone with a positive outlook on life and/or a positive mindset would know these already. When she says, "As we grow up, we’re often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates. " this caught my attention because as a kid we have all sorts of irrational fears, but personally I think those come from knowledge, and our lack of it towards one thing may cause us to draw conclusions. People don't like not knowing things, because then they just try and figure them out themselves.

I don't really have a "fear" that stopped me, because every time I face a situation like that I tell myself, "If you think you should, then you probably should, because then if you don't all you'll do is tell yourself how you should've". I fear that led me to a positive outcome would have to be when I was younger and scared of roller coasters. After I went on one it was an experiencing of a lifetime.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 10:04 AM
The idea that I found interesting was when the author stated “ But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound 7 and insightful as storytelling itself? ” I found this interesting because she flipped the whole idea of fear around and gave a new perspective of what fear could be.

My fear is driving during winter, I’m afraid of it because I don’t trust other people’s driving and I imagine that I’m gonna get into an accident because it’s happened to me before when I was little. The outcome I think is fine because I’ve never been into an accident since then but I’m still pretty afraid so I think it hurts me instead of helping me.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 10:07 AM
The most striking idea from Walker’s speech is her deep analysis of Moby Dick and how it can be used to teach us about fear. The analysis is interesting to me because I never viewed Moby Dick as having an association with fear. I always just viewed it as an old story with an adventurous plot to it.
A piece of evidence to support this is when Walker states, “ I think the end of the story of the whaleship Essex offers an illuminating, if tragic, example. After much deliberation, the men finally made a decision. Terrified of cannibals, they decided to forgo the closest islands and instead embarked on the longer and much more difficult route to South America. After more than two months at sea, the men ran out of food as they knew they might, and they were still quite far from land. When the last of the survivors were finally picked up by two passing ships, less than half of the men were left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form of cannibalism.”
This supports my thoughts because the lesson that can be taken away from Moby Dick is to use logic when facing a fear and go off of that rather than the imagery your mind is showing you.

The fear that impacted me the most was my fear of flying in an airplane. My fear stemmed from hearing about 9/11 from an early age and the idea that the plane was gonna crash while I was on it. My family would often take vacations to Florida when I was young and we would always take a plane because the drive was too unbearable for my parents. I would often break into panic attacks when we’d drive to the airport or be in the airport. However, once the plane was in the air and i realized there was no coming back, the fear subsided and I was able to relax. Eventually, I learned that flying was safer than driving and my fear helped me realize that I needed to sit back and relax.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 10:14 AM
The most interesting question the speaker proposed was how “What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as insightful as storytelling itself?” If people look at fears as a tool rather than a weakness, we can learn and be more prepared for the situations we fear the most. I find this interesting because as a little kid I always looked at fears as a weakness, but as I grow older, I looked more as fear as a motivation to work harder towards goals and push myself in different situations. I also liked how she took an approach to change others mindset about the concept of fear.
A fear I had and still have is driving. Before I got my licenses, I would have dreams I was driving and would get in accidents. As my drivers test got close, my anxiety for my test got worse. Overall, having a fear of driving has made me a better driver and allowed me to be more careful and focused on the road while I drive.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 10:18 AM
The most striking idea that the author talked about yesterday was the idea that fear should be looked at as a story rather than something that must be conquered. This interests me because fear is almost always described as something that must be conquered and describing it as a story is a different thought. In the ted talk the author claims that, “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” This shows that the author believes that fear could be beneficial if looked at as a story rather than a challenge to conquer.
A time where I felt fear was when I had to move to Wisconsin because it was the first time I moved and it was out of state and I was only 6. I was scared of having to move to a whole new state and go to a school where I did not know anybody and had to “start over”. My fear definitely hurt me because I did not want to go to school when I moved up to Wisconsin and I tried to avoid moving up to Wisconsin.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 11:06 AM
The thing I found most striking would have to be that the survivors of the shipwreck were afraid to go to the island because they were afraid of cannibals but then they ended up becoming cannibals. It interests me because the survivors were afraid of the monsters ( cannibals) and then they ended up becoming monsters. “ rumors. They’d been told that these islands, and several others nearby, were populated by cannibals.- less than half of the men were left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form of cannibalism. “

I have a fear of heights which has impacted me negatively because I don't want to go on rides are look over the edge when i'm high up. When I was younger I went to Wisconsin dells and was afraid of going on the tall rides. I was afraid of dying. I went down it had the fear didn't help or hurt me.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 11:19 AM
The most striking idea that Walker talks about was the idea that fear should be looked at as a story. This is interesting to me because fear is almost always described as something that must be conquered, and describing it as a story is a different thought. In the TED talk Walker claims that, “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” This quote shows that the author believes that fear could be beneficial if looked at as a story rather than a challenge to conquer.
My fear was when my parents got divorced when I was 7, and I had to move to Menasha. It was the first time I’ve ever moved, and my fear was having to go to a new school. My fear of having to go to a new school definitely hurt me. It hurt me because it made me not like going to school, and I didn’t want to even go to school.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 11:32 AM
What interested me the most is when she said, “So how can we tell the difference between the fears worth listening to and all the others?” This interests me because fear is like flight or fight kind of response. How do we decide weather we listen to our fears or ignore them? I don't think there will ever really be a way to know that, I think at the end of the day we should analyze, and try and figure out why they have this fear, why are we afraid of it, and take small steps to overcome it.

I don’t really have a fear that has taken over a part of my life restricting me from doing things, but I think if I had to pick something I don't like driving in bad weather, but who really likes to drive when the weather is bad? The reason I have this fear is because I fear of getting in accident, and getting hurt or hurting someone else.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 11:41 AM
Karen said to look at fear as storytelling and not just something that we should take as a weakness. She said “As we grow up, we’re often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates. And I think it’s no accident that we think this way. Neuroscientists have actually shown that human beings are hard-wired to be optimists. So maybe that’s why we think of fear, sometimes, as a danger in and of itself. “Don’t worry, ” we like to say to one another. “Don’t panic.” In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” This interests me because I personally don't look at my fears as storytelling I just see them as fears that I might want to try and conquer and that are something personal to the individuals so if people want to see their fears as telling a story then they can but if some one doesn't then they shouldn't have to. Let a person be who they are and yes I agree with Karen that if someone wants to make what they fear in to a story let them.

My fears are of snakes, spiders, murderers, rapists, and of some of the nightmares I've had before. My fears have done both positive and negative impacts the positives being if I don't want to be attacked by a murder or a rapist I keep a concealed knife and some pepper spray. It affects negatively because i'm still scared of spiders and snakes . but I can learn to try storytelling my fears.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 11:48 AM
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 11:49 AM
The idea that caught all of my attention and truly stood out to me was that fear in all of us or just fear overall should be seen as a story instead of something that must be conquered or something to overcome. This is most interesting to me because fear is usually described as something that people need to overcome instead of as a story. During the video of the ted talk the author claimed that, “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?”. This states and shows that the author from the ted talk believes fear can be beneficial if it is looked at as a story rather than having to be conquered.

One of my biggest fears that I will never forget was when I have to move to Wisconsin. I was not born in america, I was born in Mexico and moving here when I was 7 and did not know a single word of English it was so terrifying. I was scared I was going to be made fun of or be bullied and not understand what my classmates were saying to me. I also imagined that I would be beaten up because I used to be a short chubby kid and could not even do a push up back then. My fear helped me in the end because it made me realize all of that did not happen. I made friends, they helped me learn English fast within 6 months and I became an athlete and can do so many push ups and became a football player going off to college and pursue my dreams. I agree with the author, fears can be a story just like mine is.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 11:52 AM
The most interesting thing I took from the speech is when she said, “What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as insightful as storytelling itself?”. By this I took that everyone looks at fears as a bad thing.We’re raised to fear scary things with all these movies. But if we wouldn't be raised for fear to be are weakness we could really use that as a positive. It could motivate us to grow and not to walk around life scared.

One fear I've had is talking to new people. Its scary because opening up to someone new can go 50/50, they either connect with you or don't. It was scary to think that I could just make a full of myself for trying to make new friends and then it failing. But if you don't try you will never know. And overall it turned out to be a positive because I have made new friends.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 11:53 AM
The most striking idea that I believe Karen Thompson Walker shares in her speech is the usage of fear acting more as a story within human imagination, and causing that story to feel that it is real, due to the danger of the situation each human goes through. An example of this idea: "Now we might just as easily call these fears by a different name. What if instead of calling them fears, we called them stories? Because that’s really what fear is, if you think about it. It’s a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do. And fears and storytelling have the same components. They have the same architecture. Like all stories, fears have characters. In our fears, the characters are us. Fears also have plots. They have beginnings and middles and ends....Our fears provoke in us a very similar form of suspense. Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next? In other words, our fears make us think about the future."

A fear that I had when I was little, and one that I still have to this day, is being alone in the dark. Throughout my life, I would always have a night light in my bedroom to make the situation more comfortable, as when I am alone in the dark, I would imagine the worst and graphic position I could be in. When I was little, I would imagine the monsters from the live action Scooby-Doo movie, the evil queen's dragon form from Enchanted, and other creepy monster characters from childhood days, coming in my room, and eating me. Now, whenever I would go to sleep, even with the night light on, I would image something much more worse that ghouls. I would imagine a complete stranger coming in my room, and murdering me, quickly with a gun, or slowly with a knife or another torturous weapon. However, the fear was not that high. Until I came to my mom's boyfriend's house. The second night that I was there, I slept in a guest room that was in the basement. When I was preparing to go to bed, I left some Chicago music on from my IPhone X, in order to keep calm, since there was no night light that I could use. As I woke up, somewhere close to 2 AM in the mourning, my eyes were greeted by darkness. Pure darkness. I lay frightened in bed, trying to brave the dark for what I think was half-an-hour. However, the fear of murder took over, and I had to turn on a lamp that was next to the guest bed, and left it on for 2 hours, while listening to more music for the 2 hours that I was awake. Now, my mom's boyfriend has bought a night light for the guest room in the basement, however, I sometimes wished that I could comfortable in the dark when I am alone, and except it more as a friend, rather than as a stranger.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 11:56 AM
In the speech created and spoken by Karen Thompson Walker, she claims that by us as humans having fear, it motivates and inspires us. She takes the negativity of fear and turns it into a positive. One of the things that stuck out about Walker’s speech was when she tells the story that inspired the classic Moby Dick, how that because the men that were left lost at sea were so scared to be eaten by the inhabitants of the nearest islands that they had refused to go to the islands and by doing this they themselves became the cannibals. “ The men knew that the nearest islands they could reach were the Marquesas Islands, 1,200 miles away. But they’d heard some frightening rumors. They’d been told that these islands, and several others nearby, were populated by cannibals. So the men pictured coming ashore only to be murdered and eaten for dinner. “ , “ When the last of the survivors were finally picked up by two passing ships, less than half of the men were left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form of cannibalism. “. By Karen Walker mentioning she brings up a compelling idea, “And sometimes, of course, our worst fears do come true. That’s one of the things that is so extraordinary about fear. Once in a while, our fears can predict the future.” By Walker bringing up the idea of how our fear can sometimes tells the future is outstanding and when thought about it, very true. Some things Karen spoke of in her speech supports the idea of how fear can predict the future when she says; “ Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next? In other words, our fears make us think about the future.” This supports the idea that fear can predict the future because she connects our fear to the idea of reading a good book. With fear and with stories, they make you think about what could happen next, by thinking about the future we then predict things that could or could not come true.

Times that I have felt afraid have been when I drive, I’m always afraid that I will mess up and cause someone to get hurt, or some idiot that doesn’t know how to drive will be the one to cause the accident. Coincidentally, I did get into a minor car accident; my friend was driving and we were going to pick up someone for tech crew. We were passing a driveway that leads into a gas station when someone tried to whip into the driveway. We weren’t sure if she didn’t see us or she thought she could make it but all we do know is we slammed into her vehicle on the passenger side. If someone was to have been in the passenger seat they would have been extremely injured or worse, and if me and my friends weren’t wearing seat belts we would have been in the same boat. I would say that my fear and experience was both positive and negative. The positive was that I’m now more aware of how important it is to look at your surroundings and it is also very very important to wear a seat belt. I usually refuse to wear a seat belt and had reasons for not wearing one, but after the accident I now know how important it is to wear one when driving. The negative impact I had with this experience is that I have a little more fear about driving or just being driven places because people can be idiots when it comes to driving and they are careless with how they drive.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 12:21 PM
There was not really a area of the topic that interested me the whole speech was kind of surprising to me because fear is really just something that is in your imagination and it is just your brain make you think your in danger and your body will react and you will experience fear. The fact that people have so many fears is just because they do not deal with them they ignore them. They say that you will grow out of your fears when you grow up. "As we grow up, we’re often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates."

My fear when I was younger was fear of drowning, I was scared of drowning because when I was a kid I had a very bad experience with swimming because I taught myself how to swim, and sometimes I would get to tired to swim and I was still in the water so I was having troubles getting back to land and sometimes I went underwater. The outcome was that I never went to far out into the water without someone with me. And I think my fear helped me because I currently do not have any fears and I love swimming now.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 12:38 PM
The most striking idea that the author talked about yesterday was the idea that fear should be seen more as a story, then something that must be overpowered. This interested me because although most people see fear as something that is overpowered or conquered and see in this ted talk we should more or less just think of fear as a story which shows a different perspective. During her ted talk she states that, “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” This show that the author think that fear could benefit a lot of people if we were to see it as a story rather than something that is overpowering.

A time when I felt fear was when we moved to our new house, I got my own room in the basement of our house and it has a egress window and it was always really dark in the room so I would not want to sleep down there unless I had a nightlight and every night I have to check the egress window because i always have the feeling that someone is in my window cause its underground and plus it doesn’t have a lock, so I made my dad make me a piece of wood for my window so that no one can just open my window if I accidentally leave it open. What I think was going to happen was that someone was going to come bursting in my room and like have like for example like a gun or some sort of weapon and like try and hurt me. The outcome is that I dislike my window that is in my room and I just don’t think of the people in it I just focus on something else to think about while trying t go to bed. I feel like my fear can do both hurt me and help it just depends on the day or like the situation.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 12:40 PM
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 12:44 PM
The thing from the Ted Talk that caught my attention was when she said to think of our fears as a story instead of something we look at to overcome and conquer. In the Ted Talk the author said “What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” She is trying to say that by looking at fear in this kind of way that it can help us instead of having the mindset to overcome it.

A fear I had in the past which I am way more comfortable with is staying home alone for a long period of time. My dad would end up going out of town and my mom works the night shift so I would be stuck home alone from 10:30pm to about 8 in the morning. Within that time window, I would always be scared that we would get broken into or something bad within the house would happen. I have learned to kind of stand up for myself and be able to handle it incase something would happen, even though now that I think of it is pretty rare on my street that houses get broken into to begin with so that is an example of a dumb little fear I had.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 12:47 PM
The most interesting thing from the TED talk we watched was the concept of turning a fear into a story. Storytelling is a way to take imagination and turn it into something we all can imagine as our own. We can turn our fear into a prediction from this imagery and think of ways we could learn from it. During the presentation Karen Walker says, "Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?" I find this interesting because this text implies that from fear comes a drive to find a safer way to deal with the fear. This in turn can provide people with even more interesting ways to build solutions to problems.

I was afraid of the dark when I was younger. I would imagine a monster or creature that would want to hurt me being near me but I couldn’t do anything about it because I couldn’t see it. At the time my fear hurt me because I would have trouble falling asleep but eventually My fear helped me because I realized that that my fear was pretty irrational and there really wasn’t anything there. It made more brave overtime and helped my think how dumb some of my other fears were.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 12:50 PM
The most striking idea to me is the when she said "we often think of fear as a weakness" and I
believe that is true, if you are afraid of something or have a fear of something, you're not going to do that thing, so in a way it is a weakness. Fear is something that we have to overcome, and that is a very hard task for some people. Some people fear things from when they can first remember to when they die. Fear is a big thing today for every single person.

In my life, fear has had a negative impact on my life. Why? Because when you have so many fears, you're not living your best life, like I said before, fear is something that you have to overcome, but when you do overcome your fears, you feel so much better about yourself. Me personally, I have not really had a fear that has stopped me from being successful or anything like that. But one thing that I am now is paranoid of rear-ending anyone in a car. That is because when I was little my dad rear-end this lady while I was in the front seat and he totaled his car. Now every since then, I have been so scared to rear-end anyone.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 12:53 PM
The most striking idea that I believe Karen Thompson Walker talks about is the usage of fear. She has an amazing perception of what fear should be used as. She goes into depth about how fear isn't something that we should be afraid of, rather something that we should use to our advantage and make a story out of it. This is shown when she stated, "Now we might just as easily call these fears by a different name. What if instead of calling them fears, we called them stories? I really like this idea on how to perceive fear and I think it would be really beneficial to use fear in the way she said.

My biggest times of fear was on one simple thing: failure. I was so afraid of failing in football that for a period of time it made me worse and it really effected me. My very first football showcase was in Alabama and it was my freshman year, I couldn't have been more afraid in my life. I was afraid that I would get beat and fail my mom, all I wanted to do was make her proud. It turns out that I did get beat very badly, and my mom was very disappointed, but I learned that the only way to become great at something is continuous practice and constant failure. After that showcase, I've taken first place at over 30+ football competitions and showcases. That fear helped show me what I need to do in order to become successful. That same fear is the reason I have a full ride today.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 1:14 PM
What caught my attention most was the end of the story of the men lost at sea, saying "Terrified of cannibals, they decided to forgo the closest islands and instead embarked on the longer and much more difficult route to South America. After more than two months at sea, the men ran out of food as they knew they might, and they were still quite far from land. When the last of the survivors were finally picked up by two passing ships, less than half of the men were left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form of cannibalism." I found this the most interesting because of how fear had managed to overcome their sense of reasoning, which killed many of them in the end.

Several years ago, I went to an amusement park that I most likely will never go back to. When I went there, I was scared of going on the rides, which meant that i never rode them, to this day I still feel like I missed out on it.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 1:29 PM
Instead of calling them ‘fears’, we should call them ‘stories’ - that idea was the most striking. The realization hit me as she explained that “[fear is] a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do.” She was right. In a way, it was. I’ve done it all the time, even through my years in high school I’ve let my imagination run wild and tell stories based off of what I considered to be fears. Daydreaming is common for me, and when she had explained the link between the structures of fears and stories it’s like realizing that you could’ve gone through the window to get out of the door-less room. The idea is a little unconventional, but it makes SO much sense.

I had been told I was useless. Granted, it came from an angry drunk, but it still stuck with me. Ever since, I have had this lurking fear that, in the end, 'useless' is what I would become. That simple idea, that ‘fear’, had a vice-like grip while I was sick and couldn’t walk. That plain fear hurt me, because the stories that my fear would spin were only webs of unlikable outcomes - outcomes that could have honestly come true had I not fought hard. Outcomes like never walking again, not going to parties because of transportation troubles, becoming a burden, living in the hospital a lot, the works. The fear hurt, yes, but it helped me realize that none of what was happening was what I wanted, and I needed to take control of the situation. It's the reason I'm walking again. Pass running, theater, getting to all of may classes and passing with flying colors, too. It hurt, but it helped, if that makes sense.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 1:37 PM
One thing that I found interesting form the TED Talk was thinking about are fears as a story rather than something to overcome. I have never thought of a fear as being like story more as just something to avoid like spiders, or snakes. Walker explained fears in away that make them not seem so bad she said this, “Like all stories, fears have characters. In our fears, the characters are us.” This makes sense rather than run from your fears make it into a story, or something not so scary.

Something that I had always been afraid of is planes. I always heard about plane crash and thought I can never go on plane or else I’m gonna die. I thought I would go on the plane it will take off and everything will be fine. Than out of nowhere something is going to happen and it will crash and I will die. Than the summer before seventh grade I went on a trip to Disney World down in Florida and took a plan. Leading up to the trip I was a little nervous and as it got closer and closer I got more nervous. Than when I was on the plane it was even worse I thought I was going to die I did not want to me there. It didn’t get any better ether when it was the worse I could feel us getting higher into the air. I eventually, I got over it and thought it was cool to see everything getting smaller and smaller. Than when it was time to go home getting on the plane again was not bad at all. My fear was officially overcome.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 1:46 PM
What I thought was most interesting about her TED talk, was the men on the ship and the fear of the unknown. There were stories about the islands that could have saved some of them, but they chose to not risk getting eaten by cannibals that COULD have existed. They didn't know whether or not those cannibals existed, but they chose to believe that. Humans fear the unknown, they didnt know if there were cannibals, they didn't know if they'd attack and they didn't know about the storms near hawaii. so they chose what made them less fearful, going the extra hundred miles. and some of them even turned to cannibalism. 'When the last of the survivors were
finally picked up by two passing ships, less than half of the men were left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form of cannibalism.'

I also fear the unknown. I dont know whats going to happen, day to day, and when you lack communication on top of that? it terrifies me. Animals. Your basic dogs, cats, and household pets are okay, but almost all reptiles, and most poisonous bugs scare the hell out of me. because you could get bit, or coated in a toxin, and bam, you get sick and die. but then again, this fear drove me into researching these species, and now i know what to do and am more prepared to face some of these mini deadly creatures.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 1:57 PM
I thought the part about where Walker states how most people tend to fear things then find the easiest solution is to avoid and it at all costs, but we really shouldn’t because in can grow our imagination. When she says, “After much deliberation, the men finally made a decision. Terrified of cannibals, they decided to forgo the closest islands and instead embarked on the longer and much more difficult route to South America. After more than two months at sea, the men ran out of food as they knew they might, and they were still quite far from land. When the last of the survivors were finally picked up by two passing ships, less than half of the men were left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form of cannibalism.“ This showed the men feared cannibalism but yet ended up becoming what they most feared. This is why I find that we should not avoid fear as these men did but explore it and maybe let it grow our imaginations.

I remember when I was younger and had a fear of the dark. I was to afraid to get up and go get a drink of water in the middle of night when I was thirsty because the hallway didn’t have any lights on in it. One night I finally decided to and walked there and was okay, but when I started to walk back the floor creaked and I ran all the way back to my bed and hide under my covers. A few minutes later I realized that It was just an old house and that was the floor and from then on never was I afraid again.
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AnonymousApril 3, 2019 at 2:29 PM
I found the idea of fear being related/similar to storytelling and our imagination most striking. This is because I have never thought of it that way and I can totally agree. “What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” When I think of a fear of mine I think of possibilities/situations that could happen and use the imagined situations features/contents to overcome them as she describes.

My fear was drowning. The story was that I would go fishing in my boat in the river, I’d go to grab a fish and fall in, the current would pull me under and I would drown. I imagined that I would wash up dead somewhere and my parents would be sad. The outcome was negative but it helped me because I always wear a life jacket and take precautions when fishing alone!
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AnonymousApril 4, 2019 at 7:57 AM
The most striking idea I thought Karen Thompson Walker mentioned was “As we grow up, we’re often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates. And I think it’s no accident that we think this way. Neuroscientists have actually shown that human beings are hard-wired to be optimists. So maybe that’s why we think of fear, sometimes, as a danger in and of itself. “Don’t worry,” we like to say to one another. “Don’t panic.” This is interesting for me because sometimes it’s hard to get away from your fears or to even overcome them because you have to think positively about it in order to conquer our fears.

The one fear that I’ve always had was being afraid of spiders or tarantulas. I’ve had this fear since I was little and I can never seem to conquer it, even to this day I’m still afraid of spiders. I think the reason why I have this fear is just the negative things that I often hear about spiders, that some can be poisonous, or the fact that some of them know how to jump. It’s also just the way they look that also freaks me out which makes me get goosebumps. I always imagined that spiders would bite you or do something harmful which gives me the idea to stay away from them. This fear hasn’t helped me, at least not yet. I want to try and get over my fear, but I know it would take a lot of time and trust with myself in order to conquer it.
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AnonymousApril 4, 2019 at 9:55 AM
The idea I found most interesting was when she asked the audience, "What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?" I find this interesting because she's asking everyone to entirely change our way of thinking to learn to understand our fears so we can use them to grow. I agree with this, but also I don't think she put enough information in to help us know how to get from here to there.
Fear hasn't really stopped me from doing anything. I've been raised to act on fear and to utilize it. It's helped me get the job I have now, It's helped me do everything I've done and everything I've said. The fear that I worry about most is losing my family. But that's helped me to get closer to the people that matter to me.
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AnonymousApril 4, 2019 at 10:00 AM
So the part that was most interesting is when she was talking about everyone overcoming their fears. In this paragraph Karen Walker Thompson was saying “So maybe that’s why we think of fear, sometimes, as a danger in and of itself. “Don’t worry,” we like to say to one another. “Don’t panic.” In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome.” This interested me because it explains that you can overcome everything.

I'm afraid of crashing my car. It was a positive impact because i've always been told most people total their first car so it made me drive safer and make sure I was paying attention to my surroundings. Saw that I could crash and be hurt because of it. The outcome is I have never crashed a car.

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AnonymousApril 4, 2019 at 10:07 AM
The most interesting idea that Karen Thompson Walker mentioned in her Ted Talk was that idea that fear is something that we overcome rather then something that we deal with and then it is over. For example, when she says, "In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?" I liked how she made us think of fear in a different way then what we normally do.

One fear that I had when I was younger was going to the doctor and getting shots. I hated this because when I was younger there was a time that I was pretty sick, so I was always at the doctor getting shots. Later in my life when I wasn't sick anymore, I would still hate getting them because I would associate the shots with the hard time in my childhood where I was really sick, so I thought I was getting them because I was sick again. Now, this fear doesn't have much of an effect on me because I realize that I'm not sick anymore.
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AnonymousApril 4, 2019 at 10:33 AM

The fact that karen uses fear as a motivation is interesting to me and convinces us for it “As we grow up, we’re often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness.” I agree with Karen’s statement here because I was told that if your scared, think of something to better the outcome of a situation I never knew what that meant till I was 7 just think about it as a happy place that you can escape to.

I am afraid of high places and trucks, my dad used to be a truck driver and I know that it wasn’t really bad it was a different experience. Fear has never really stopped me from being successful it just distracted me a bit. This story was a few years ago I don’t remember when exactly but I was at a park walking a long rocks with a friend of mine I slipped and fell into the water there was a current which wasn’t helpful my friend helped me out of the water I was scared because I didn’t know what was going to happen I imagined floating or drowning which didn’t help and this fear helped me because I stayed calm and learned to be more careful.

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AnonymousApril 4, 2019 at 11:30 AM
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AnonymousApril 4, 2019 at 11:44 AM
The one thing I find most interesting about Walkers speech on this subject was the whole fear can be turned into a positive thing. I think this is interesting because I never thought of fear this way. I don't think anybody does a good portion of the time because their spending all of their time thinking of the negative ways it will affect them. Fear operates through our imagination as does storytelling. Our imagination allows us to be creative. To take a unique situation and turn it into something fun. where we can learn from it.

I feel like I myself have a lot of fears more like petty stuff such as spiders, heights and what not. One fear that I had as a child was horror movies and there was one movie in specific that traumatized me as a child and that movie was Halloween. I always thought that Michael Myers was going to pop out of my closet in the middle of the night and attack me in my sleep. However, while this of course was just my imagination running wild as it always has, that fear no longer exists. I can now watch horror movies without even the slightest bit of fear.
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AnonymousApril 4, 2019 at 12:33 PM
The most interesting idea I found from Karen Walker that we should look at fear as
“an amazing act of imagination”. This interests me because I haven't really thought of looking at fear in a different way.

One fear that I have had recently is driving on the highway when it is raining and having to go under the speed limit because I can't see the cars in front of me at all. Just gives me the fear of crashing or going off the highway. I just try to stay calm and get off the nearest exit if I can.
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blondebimboApril 4, 2019 at 7:54 PM
The Idea that I found interesting was her analysis to Moby dick and how it can be used to teach us about fear. I found this interesting because I never looked at the story of Moby dick to be fearful and how she described the men as being scared of cannibalism so they choose to take the long distance even though they knew that they probably wouldn’t make.

When I was little I was always afraid of the basement because it was dark and scary my cousin would always scare me when I went down their by turning the lights off. So I always had to have someone come with me in the basement.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 7:40 AM
The striking idea to me is that Walker speaks about the idea that fear should be looked at as a story. This is interesting because fear is almost always defined as something that must be overcame, and describing it as a story is a different mindset. In the speech Walker exclaims that, “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” This quote elaborates that the author believes that fear could be critical to someones well-being if studied as a story rather than a challenge to conquer.

Around the age of 5 I didn't know how to swim at all and one day I went to the pool with my family and i was afraid to get in the water because I knew I could not swim. I eventually overcame that and got in the water but the floor of the water slowly disappeared under my feet and I was not a fan of wearing a life vest or anything like that. My big brothers were way out in the deep section tossing a football and I wanted to join them but when the floor was eventually gone I started to go further down. I soon found myself drowning and struggling to keep my head above the water until my Uncle Brad came and saved me. I was so scared of drowning and still am to this day but I used it as drive to be a strong swimmer and practice swimming as much as I can. Now I have no problem swimming and am really good at it but that fear is still in me which only drives me to want to keep swimming.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 10:17 AM
The most striking idea that the author had brought up about fear is that instead of thinking of fear as a fear that people should start thinking of it as something like a story. Why this interests me is because if someone were to think of their fears as something more of a story that they would be easier to conquer the fear, you can see this when the author says “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination”
A fear that I have had in the past was talking on the phone with people, how I eventually got over that fear was when I had got my job I was talking to more people and had to be on the phone more often so as I started to talk more on the phone I got over my fear pretty quickly.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 10:23 AM
The idea that I found most interesting was when she said “ But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound 7 and insightful as storytelling itself? ” I found this interesting because i have never thought about fear in this way, It gave me a new perspective on how to deal with fear and how i can turn it into something positive.

A fear that I have dealt with is a fear of snakes, I have had this fear for almost all of my life. Im not sure where this fear developed from but it has just always been there. I have not had to face this very often but in the few times i have it has held me back from situations that I could have participated in.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 11:04 AM
The most striking idea from Walker’s speech was when she talked about how we should view our fears as stories instead. I found it interesting when in the speech she said “ What if instead of calling them fears, we called them stories? Because that’s really what fear is, if you think about it. It’s a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do. And fears and storytelling have the same components.” this to me is interesting because it’s a completely different perspective on viewing our fears.

Growing up I remember having many fears, but one that really impacted my childhood was blood. I remember when I was younger I would always feel anxious and scared every time my mom would tell me that I had a doctors appointment. Even if the appointment was just for a simple physical examination to make sure my health was good, I would still feel very terrified. The reason I was very afraid of blood was because of the amount of injuries I would experience. It always terrified me seeing a large amount of blood coming out. I was always scared of what would happen to me if the blood didn’t stop fast. I think the outcome was helpful because due to the amount of injuries and seeing lots of blood often growing up. It made me realize that everything will be okay. Currently, it doesn’t really make me feel anxious and feel scared at all when I have a doctors appointment. It doesn’t bother me at all anymore.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 11:26 AM
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 11:29 AM
The idea that i think is interesting is that fear in all of us or just fear overall should be seen as a story instead of something that must be conquered or something to overcome. I find this interesting because fear is usually described as something scary and people dont wanna do not as a story as she states that. Karen states “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?”. This shows that Karen thinks that we should use fear as a positivity and a story instead of trying to conquer our fear.

My fear that impacted me in a negative way is when i was 13 i was home alone and our neighbor was drunk and came into our house and i was home alone and he started screaming in my house at he started to walk upstairs i ran to the bathroom locked the door and climb out my window and called my parents he kept banging on my bathroom door and i never been so scared when i was on the phone with my parents they told me to call the cops so i hung up and called the cops when the cops came the ran upstairs my bathroom door was open and the guy was gone so i came off the roof and waited with the cops until my parents go back home. I thought that if he would have got to me he probably would've hurt me or would have took me but lucky i was smart and found a way to the bathroom and to the roof. My fear if being home alone now i cant stay home alone for 5 minutes now.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 11:42 AM
The most striking idea to me, was how the men of the essex were so terrified of cannibals that they took a extra far route and risked starving to death to avoid them. But in the end some of the men resorted to cannibalism themselves and became what they feared. I think this is interesting because of the irony of this situation. I also think it's interesting how Walker compares fears to storytelling. In walkers speech she says, “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?”. I like how Walker wants us to look at our fears with a new perspective and to think of them more as a story then our fears.

I think my biggest fear the affects me is the fear of the unknown. I'm always afraid of trying things because i'm not always sure what would happen or what to expect. An example of this is when I go to haunted houses i'm always afraid before I go in because i'm not sure what to expect, but once i'm in there i'm not scared at all. This fear has impacted because sometimes it prevents me from trying some new things.
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UnknownApril 5, 2019 at 12:22 PM
Kelly introduced a new way of thinking which can change how I can view my fears. Before I thought fears should just be something that should be avoided, but now I believe it should be something I should explore. An interesting quote from Kelly that inspired this thinking was, “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?”

One of the fears that I had as a kid was the fear of being by myself in my basement. The fear started after I was playing with legos in the basement, and I heard a loud clapping sound. I honestly thought it was some sort of monster or ghost that was going to eat me, so I never went down their by myself during that age. Later, I found out that the clapping noise was just the noise for the dryer being done. The fear made me to scared to entertain myself, and was mostly pointless.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 12:23 PM
Kelly introduced a new way of thinking which can change how I can view my fears. Before I thought fears should just be something that should be avoided, but now I believe it should be something I should explore. An interesting quote from kelly that inspired this thinking was, “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?”

One of the fears that I had as a kid was the fear of being by myself in my basement. The fear started after I was playing with legos in the basement, and I heard a loud clapping sound. I honestly thought it was some sort of monster or ghost that was going to eat me, so I never went down their by myself during that age. Later, I found out that the clapping noise was just the noise for the dryer being done. The fear made me to scared to entertain myself, and was mostly pointless.
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elijah SaeckerApril 5, 2019 at 12:45 PM
For me the most interesting idea was the reading of fears to learn more about potential situations. Due to the vivid imagination of children, they are encouraged to shed their fears and grow, however the author suggests that we instead keep these fears and read them. This wraps around to the main topic that people should read fears instead of thinking of them as “just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates.” (Walker)

One thing that has always sacred me was the thought that I had forgotten something important. For example, sometimes I wake up at one in the morning panicking over something that may or may not exist. This fear has hurts me because it causes me to sleep and makes it hard for me to remember important deadlines.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 12:49 PM
One thing that stuck out to me in her speech was when she said, “What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” I found it interesting because I never really looked at it that way, I feel that looking at it that way can actually give some sense of excitement to whoever telling the story. It sounds like a way to get over your fears as well, just look at it like a story.

A fear that I have would be losing my diamonds in Minecraft. It’s really scary because you have to work so hard to get them and then when you die you probably can’t get them back. The story to this was when I was playing Minecraft at about four in the morning and I wanted to get off and go to bed. So I was mining in this cave and to get out I mined straight up and got hit by lava and I died. The fear helped me because it taught me not to mine straight up.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 1:08 PM
The most striking idea that Walker talked about was the idea that fear should be looked at as a story. This is interesting to me because fear is almost always described as something that must be conquered, and describing it as a story is a different thought. In the TED talk Walker claims that, “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” This quote shows that the author believes that fear could be beneficial if looked at as a story rather than a challenge to conquer.
My fear was when my parents forced me to move to Menasha. It was the first time that I moved, The fear was me moving schools. My fear of having to go to a new school definitely scared me. It scared me because it made me not wanted to go to any other school. But I realize now that Menasha is a great place.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 1:50 PM
The most interesting thing that I took from the speech is when she said “What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as insightful as storytelling itself?” This quote is talking about how there’s most kids growing up with a fear and as they get older they grow up with it. For an example if they watch scary movies at a young they’re going to be afraid of any scary movie they watch as they get older in the future.

Growing up I had always had one fear and that was meeting new people or just talking to them. This can be scary because talking to a person that I never seen before can be really awkward since I don’t know them at all. There can be so many emotions going on all in once and many thoughts that I can be thinking in mind. The outcome of this fear is that it’s not bad being shy for a while because then you’ll get use to the people you meet and you're with them for a long time period.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 2:07 PM
The most striking idea that I thought Karen Thompson Walker had was when she said, “What if instead of calling them fears, we call them stories?” I would never have thought of calling my fears stories I have always thought of calling my dreams and nightmares stories more than anything. This part of her speak spoke to me because I never would have thought of my fear being a story I always thought of it more of a bad thing.

I had a fear of driving, but as I drove more and more I like it more now, but I have a fear of driving on the highway I have driven on the highway a couple of times now. I think I have this fear now because when my brother was in wrestling in the winter time my parents were driving to a tournament at a different school along with his friend and his parents driving in front of us. Then there was a semi in front of them and suddenly we were all breaking and all of a sudden my friends car was spinning into the ditch. I started hyperventilating because I hung out with my brothers friends sister I thought she was in the car and got injured and in my mind I imagined her going to the hospital for her injury, but she was not with them.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 2:17 PM
The main idea that caught my attention was that fear overall should be seen as a story instead of something that must be faced or overcome. This was the most interesting to me because the way fear is usually described as something that must be faced head on and can not run away from, instead of being a story. During the Ted Talk video the author claims that, “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?”. This shows that the author is challenging the way most see fear, and why it should be seen as something much more powerful. If fear were looked at as a story it would be much more beneficial rather than something that must be faced.

My biggest fear has always been the fear of the unknown, and judging whether something bad might happen if I do a certain thing. I’m sure that everyone has a fear of the unknown simply because there is no direct situation, anything could happen. There are many situations where this fear has sprung up, but having this fear has definitely help me in a positive way, because its allowed me to be cautious in new situations so that I don't hurt my self or others. It’s allowed me to start slow and learn until I am comfortable with what I am doing. All in all having this fear has helped me stay safe from situations that could be harmful.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 2:46 PM
The most interesting part of the speech to me was the thought of how fear should not be looked at as something to overcome but rather as a story. This intrigued me because throughout my life, whether it was from my parents, something on TV, or some other form of media, I’ve always been taught to face and overcome my fears. The speaker said “In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” This shows how the author believes that fear isn't necessarily a bad thing , but that it can be actually beneficial when not looked at as something to overcome but viewed as a story instead.

An extremely irrational fear I had when I was 6-7 was werewolves, not just any werewolf though, the stereotypical werewolf wasn't what I was afraid of. I was afraid of the werewolf from Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. It didn't really affect me except for not wanting to be outside at night.
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Andres CalderonApril 5, 2019 at 2:55 PM

The most striking thing that caught my attention form the ted talk was, “What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as insightful as storytelling itself?”. This was interesting to me because I never imagine fear to be good and look at it as a imagination. But I can see how we could see fear as a positive and not bad. Our bodies are program to feel fear as a bad thing and now I can see fear as a good thing when experience it.

A fear that I have are bugs. I just don't like them at all because they are just creepy looking and feel so nasty. I had a dream of a world that bugs were huge bigger than humans. This fear hasn't affected me from doing things yet, but in the future maybe it will.
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AnonymousApril 5, 2019 at 7:09 PM
I listened to the Ted talk again, in order to find the specific words that I could relate to and learn from. Those lines of Karen Thompson Walker’s speech came at about the 7:10 minute mark when she asked us to think about fears as stories, and said to, “Think of ourselves as the authors, and the readers,” of those stories (of our fears.) At this time in my life, when I am thinking about college and my future, all kinds of fears enter my thoughts. Fears of being on my own, of taking on student loans and having debt for years to come, of choosing the wrong college. I want to do what is best for me, but I do not know for sure what that is, so I fear I will make a big mistake. These fears grow into stories of failure or success in my mind. Karen Thompson Walker suggests that I think of myself as the author, and also the reader of these stories. Her way of looking at the stories of my fear — as the author and reader—- makes me think I am in more control. I can write how it turns out, and if I need to I can also write a new chapter. At 5:50 of the Ted speech, Thompson also talked about “what will happen next” and a sort of mental time travel. I think we all wish we knew what will happen next...

An incident when I felt really afraid was when I went on the Hades 360 roller coaster at Mt Olympus with two friends. I did not want to go on the ride because I was scared. My fear was it would derail, I might fall out, it might get stuck, pretty much everything I had ever heard terrible about roller coasters was running through my mind. I pictured myself in each situation, how I would respond or fall to my death, or survive and be okay. My friends talked me into it, which now I think was probably me not wanting them to think less of me for being afraid, and also I did not want to feel left out. The outcome was that I went on the ride and it was fun. But, I do think that a little fear is good for us. It helps us think through our decisions.
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AnonymousApril 8, 2019 at 2:42 PM
I thought that the most interesting idea in Karen Thomson Walker’s speech “What Fear Can Teacher Us” was when she said that people are encouraged to think that fear is a weakness. In her speech she says “just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates. And I think it’s no accident that we think this way. Neuroscientists have actually shown that human beings are hard-wired to be optimists. So maybe that’s why we think of fear, sometimes, as a danger in and of itself. “Don’t worry,” we like to say to one another. “Don’t panic.” In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?

I thought this was interesting because when we look at fear as just one characteristic you could have many weaknesses and fear isn’t one of them. If you see right through fear then try to put yourself into situations/events that you are afraid of and uncomfortable with.

In my own life, fear has had a POSITIVE impact on me. One example of this is when I was starting my first year of high school freshman year I had many of fears when I started my first day high school. It goes back to my first class in high school (first hour). My first hour class was Algebra to start the day. And this is where fear starting to play a role in meeting and working in groups with new people. Eventually my teacher was going to give us assigned seats but for the first day she let us choose our seats. Then the next day started the assigned seats and I was fearful of meeting my new group members. My group was three other girls I did not know who went do different schools then I attended. So my first day was total silence not one of us talked to each other. Then the next day I finally had to face my fear of meeting new people we were given a group project that forced us to talk and work together to complete the project. Then I finally worked with them and got to know my group so then when we have to work together it's easy to pick someone to start reading. In this case fear [HELPED ME because I had trouble working and getting to know my group and then my fear went away once I talked with them.
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AnonymousApril 15, 2019 at 10:54 AM
The main idea that caught my attention from the TED Talk was that we should see our fears as more of a story and not as much as something we try to avoid. I feel that seeing our fears as some type of story of the imagination can help us prepare for these scenarios and can help us actually understand our fears. If we view fears as stories we can adapt to them and overall develop ourselves as humans.

I feel that a fear of mine in the past was meeting new people and breaking that barrier that I had known my whole. Since Elementary and Middle School I had always been a quiet kid that didn't really want to communicate with others. I feel this became a fear to me because of childhood events and difficulties that I faced that I'd like to keep to myself. However, when I came to High School, I made it a goal to break out and develop myself as a better person, and to make new friends that I had thought were right for me. Over the course of High School, I changed drastically as a person, however I think it has helped me in the long run in overcoming my fears.
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AnonymousApril 15, 2019 at 1:05 PM
The Idea that I found interesting was her analysis to Moby dick and how it can be used to teach us about fear. I found this interesting because I never looked at the story of Moby dick to be fearful and how she described the men as being scared of cannibalism so they choose to take the long distance even though they knew that they probably wouldn’t make.

When I was little I was always afraid of the basement because it was dark and scary my cousin would always scare me when I went down their by turning the lights off. So I always had to have someone come with me in the basement.
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AnonymousApril 17, 2019 at 9:19 AM

The Idea that intrigued me the most from the Ted Talk was that we should think fear as a wonderful thing rather than as a weakness. As she quoted “ But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?” that caught my attention because I would never thought of fear as a great thing, but the way she interprets it as that if we think differently of fear that we can overcame a tremendous amount of scary adversity obstacles, Which truly made me realize that fear might not be a bad thing.

As a young kid I was scared of drowning. The only reason why I feared drowning because of old movies I've seen with people drowning so I feared that, So later when I was a 4th or 5th grade I went to the Menasha Pool with my older Brother and him and I went to go swim in the deeper side of the pool and we both jumped in and he started to show me how to swim and I felt like that fear I had was gone and I felt happy to overcome my fear of drowning

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AnonymousApril 17, 2019 at 7:43 PM
The most interesting part to me is that she said is that fear is like telling a story. "It’s a kind of
unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do." This interesting to me because I have a fear of being inside a ship then it starts to sink and I wouldn't be able to get out. This influenced some choices for what I won't do in life, like go into the Navy or Cost Guard.
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AnonymousApril 18, 2019 at 10:28 AM
The thing interesting thing that Karen Thompson Walker said in her Ted Talk was the idea that fear is something that we overcome rather then something that we deal with and then it is all over. For example, when she says, "In English, fear is something we conquer. It’s something we fight. It’s something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?" I like how she made us think of fear in a different ways and not like we normally think of fear and that fear can be something amazing.

One fear that I had when I was young was getting on roller coasters. Because I've heard people talking about them in bad ways like them saying what if the roller coaster broke or what if at the top the roller coaster flew off and one more maybe you’ll fall off when you are going down a steep hill thing. I was thinking about all that so I was scared to go on them. Now that I went on the “Zippin Pippin” in Green Bay it wasn’t that scary. When my family goes to the dells i'm not scared to go on the roller coasters there but the 360 one.
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AnonymousApril 22, 2019 at 10:12 PM
I think the most striking idea about fear that Karen Thompson Walker brought up in her ted talk is when she said “ But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself? ”. This interested me because usually we think of fear as a bad thing and a thing we don't want to experience but we could look at fear in a good way and use it to entertain ourselves.

A fear that has impacted me in a negative way is when I quit sports that I was in because I was afraid of not being good and afraid of people thinking I was bad. This impacted me in a negative way because I Missed out on a lot of fun because of my fear.
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AnonymousApril 23, 2019 at 8:47 AM
I thought it was interesting how she took the idea of fear and tried to tell us to view it in a positive way. “But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination something that can be as profound 7 and insightful as storytelling itself?”

I don’t really have a fear that stops me from doing things but if I had to really pick something it would be getting in an accident on my motorcycle. I know the danger of riding a motorcycle I know that if someone on car doesn't see me or there on their phone while driving and the were to hit me I know that accident could take my life. But that doesn't stop me from riding my motorcycle.
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AnonymousApril 26, 2019 at 4:39 PM
The most striking idea she portrays is what if we thought of fear as a n act of imagination instead and use it to be insightful. “It’s easiest to see this link between fear and the imagination in young children, whose fears are often extraordinarily vivid. When I was a child, I lived in California, which is, you know, mostly a very nice place to live, but for me as a child, California could also be a little scary. I remember how frightening it was to see the chandelier that hung above our dining table swing back and forth during every minor earthquake, and I sometimes couldn’t sleep at night, terrified that the Big One might strike while we were sleeping.” (Walker) When she says this it really lets us see how much they are linked together and how it makes us immagine the worse instead of what would actually happen.

My fear was that when my mom left for California i’d lose her forever. The story behind it was because when someone left my life they stayed gone and i was worried i’d lose her forever and be alone in the world since my dad was still in teas serving in the military.The outcome was that we kept in touch and saw each other a few times before she went missing for three years and my ear came true that id lose her. She was recently found in jail but since then i still have not heard anything about her. This fearlet me prepare for the worst that actually happened and it helped me come to terms with her going missing.
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AnonymousApril 29, 2019 at 12:45 AM
One thing in the Ted talk that stood out to me was the whole idea that fear is an interesting idea to invest your time into. Just the fact that it can bring for some really cool and amazing story telling. I personally like watching horror movies or listening or reading stuff that is scary and always found it interesting to put my shoes in these situations when listening. It’s all because some of the stories aren’t everyday situations you get thrown into but inspired by real fears. Karen explains here, “So most of us have not experienced a situation as frightening as the one in which these sailors found themselves in”

One story of fear I had was when it was my first day working the cash register at my job I worked at just because I wasn’t really a social person and there was so much to the cash register that I needed to learn yet that it felt very flustering. I worked my first two customers in the store in front of my manager. It was pretty funny of how much of a nervous wreck I was it was bad. My heart was pounding really hard and I was heating up with sweat building up. With time and just getting over that fear I got better at the register. And to this day has been a number one reason to why I have been more open then I ever been before so I can thank my work for that.
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