#DOES THIS MEAN ARES LOVES PHOBOS MORE OR LESS THAN DEIMOS?? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mythologyfolklore · 4 years ago

Text

Ares and Athena through the years - Ch. 06

Chapter six: Grief and reconciliation

The Olympians had now got a new member: Dionysos, the new god of wine, madness, theatre, parties, vegetation and the afterlife.

But it wasn't celebrated as much as it would have normally. The young god didn't mind; he knew why and he understood, that this was no time for a party.

They would have been thirteen now, but Hestia had given up her place in favour of him, thus they stayed twelve. Athena found, that the round looked kind of … incomplete without Hestia.

But her chair wasn't the only empty one.

Two other deities, who were still here, but hardly showed their faces these days, were leaving their places at the table vacant. Yet, when they did show up, they often killed the mood in the room, just by looking like the Algea¹ themselves. Zeus tolerated it, as he could relate to their grief.

Ares and Aphrodite looked strange in mourning attire.

Crushed, far less alive, mere shadows of their former selves.

Clad in black from head to toe, no jewellery or armour, they even were wearing ashes.

Aphrodite's lovely hair had been shorn, the way mortal women did, when mourning. It was odd to see the bright love goddess wear nothing but black. Her duties no longer delighted her, nor did the other Olympians ever hear her bell-like laughter these days.

Ares was neglecting his job entirely and never looked anything but weary, broken and defeated. He had dark rims under his eyes and always seemed close to either tears or a fit of anger. And he had taken to wearing a brooch with Harmonia's face engraved on it.

Dear, blameless Harmonia, Ares' and Aphrodite's beloved daughter and sunshine, who was gone, gone forever, who would never come back, who had forsaken divinity … who was dead.

It was still so hard to believe for everyone.

Goddesses didn't die.

Only once had Athena seen a goddess die: her first friend, whose name she had adopted to honour her. Except that Pallas had simply become one with Pontos² again.

She was, in a way, still there.

Not so Harmonia; she was really, truly dead and nothing would ever bring her back.

Ares knew, that the rest of the family had trouble stomaching this too.

Even for him and Aphrodite it was hard to believe, and even harder, if not impossible, to bear.

My lovely daughter, my little sunshine, my joy and pride, my sweet child, she is gone, gone, she will never come back, she is dead, dead, dead-

Both parents had fallen silent.

They rarely spoke anymore and if they did, it was always about Harmonia. They didn't know how else to cope with their grief.

For their divine children it was the same.

Once they'd had a fight with their youngest sons Phobos and Deimos, who had confronted them and doubted, that if one of them would die, their parents would be remotely as affected. The fight had escalated into screaming, shattered earthenware and broken furniture, but had ended in tears and a group hug.

Ares could understand and relate to this, his children's worry, still he didn't want to hear such an accusation ever again.

There were moments, when the pain got too overwhelming, that Aphrodite would randomly burst into tears or wails and Ares would clench every muscle in his body, trying to suppress his emotions.

They both knew why things had come to this.

Ares had known before Aphrodite had.

The necklace … the necklace Hephaistos had once given Aphrodite (after their divorce, after the incident had happened), who in turn had given it to her daughter as a wedding gift.

That cursed piece of jewellery that, as Ares soon had found out, had been made with malicious intent.

Dionysos (this boy, who was both his half-brother, his nephew and his daughter's grandson, this god of madness, who had caused part of the trouble) had been the one to point it out.

And once Ares had actually taken a look at the necklace of Harmonia, it had dawned on him.

The necklace had been made by Hephaistos, obviously, but he had also recognised the handiwork of Eris, the baleful essence of her and her children. Whatever way the blacksmith had persuaded her and the Kakodaimones to help him was beyond Ares, but that wasn't the point. It was oozing with misfortune and woe.

And then he remembered overhearing a conversation between the smith and his new wife, Aglaia.

The thing was fucking cursed.

The maker had wanted her to suffer for her parents' crime.

My Harmonia, my child, he wanted her to suffer for something that was mine and Aphrodite's fault, he wanted to hurt her, because she reminded him of the incident.

The realisation had made Ares burst into dreadful laughter, terrifying every living being within a hundred mile radius.

Of course.

How could he ever have assumed, that his brother would possibly gift something to the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, to the girl who had been conceived on that disgraceful day.

How could he ever have hoped that Hephaistos would forgive them?

Of course Hephaistos hadn't forgiven them.

He hadn't forgiven Ares and Aphrodite for betraying him, so how could he have forgiven their daughter to come from it?

At first he had wanted to take his wrath out on them directly, but had quickly noticed, that they themselves left no opening for the curse to work (then again, Ares was friends with Eris and her brood of evil, so he was probably completely immune to their vibes).

Aphrodite giving the accursed necklace to her daughter had just been a stroke of luck; Harmonia, a third generation goddess with a mortal husband and children, had been a lot more vulnerable to the baleful curse of her wedding gift.

Deep down, the smith had felt sorry for his niece, even though under his friendly facade he had always loathed her for being spawned under such circumstances. Still there had been no denying, that she had been sweet and innocent and hadn't deserved to suffer.

Yet, his pity had been drowned out by the grim satisfaction of seeing her parents heartbroken over their daughter's misfortune and subsequent death.

Maybe one day he would regret, what he had done, but that day was yet to come. For now his heart was flint.

As Athena followed Aglaia through the smithery, the Kharis seemed to be far more sober than usual.

“Approach him with care”, she warned the wisdom goddess, “He's in a really bad mood today.”

“I can imagine”, the taller woman muttered. “Don't worry. I can handle this, I know what to do.”

Aglaia nodded in acknowledgement, but whispered: “Alright. Just don't say their names. And don't mention the incident.”

She bowed courteously and saw herself out.

Athena took a deep breath, before going deeper into the workshop.

Don't say their names … that would be impossible, because she was here on their behalf.

“Hey, Athena. I know you and I hate each other, but can you do me a favour …?”

Once Ares had told her, she hadn't been able to refuse.

The blue-eyed goddess needed to look for a while, until she spied Hephaistos hunched over a desk, doing precision work. His face was stone and he was currently burning brightly, not bothering to keep his flames inside his body.

In a really bad mood, Aglaia had said – what an understatement! If the normally composed smith was on fire, that could only mean that he was on the verge of exploding!

It was only when his hands were free, that Athena knocked on the door frame to make herself known.

He turned his head.

Holy Khaos, if looks could kill even gods, she would have dropped dead on the spot!

“Your shield isn't done yet!”, he snapped at her and sparks fell out of his hair.

She swallowed her agitation and replied: “I'm not here because of that. I'm here, because someone asked me to give you a letter and didn't trust Hermes to do it.”

Hephaistos stared at her and his flames died down.

After muttering an apology for his rudeness, he pushed his wheelchair around the desk and offered her a stool.

“Do you want some nectar?”

“No, thank you. As I said, I'm only here because of the letter.”

The smith was obviously still extremely pissed off, but he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before speaking.

“Athena, if this is a letter from Ares, give it back to him and tell him to shove it up his-”

“Listen to me!”, she interrupted him. “I didn't read this, but he came to me, even though he hates me, and asked me for help. So this has to be important!”

“… Fine.”

“When he gave me this, he mentioned another letter he sent you before.”

Hephaistos scowled and confirmed, that he had indeed received a letter – more than a millennium after the incident.

Athena lifted an eyebrow. “You didn't read it, did you? He suspected it too. Said, that this time he wants you to read it in my presence. I hate to admit it, but sometimes he does use the single-digit number of braincells he has.”

The smith snorted at the jab, but told her to wait here, rolled out of the room and came back with another, seemingly far older scroll of papyrus.

“You are both right, I didn't read it”, he admitted. “But for some reason I couldn't bring myself to burn it either.” A sigh. “After all, no one has ever gone through remotely as much trouble as to write me a letter.”

“Maybe you want to read that one first”, she proposed.

Hephaistos scowled down at the scroll in his lap. But after unrolling it, he blinked.

“Huh. The prick sure has clean handwriting.”

Oh. That really was unexpected. However, it didn't matter right now.

“What are you waiting for?”, Athena urged.

He puffed his cheeks. “I still don't see a point in reading it. It's probably something really offensive about me stealing his girl or some shit.”

She chuckled. Yes, that sounded like something Ares would have written after the incident.

“Well, can he make you any angrier than you already are at him?”

“I guess not.”

“Then read it anyway. And if it pisses you off, burn it. But at least you'll have read it.”

The blacksmith rolled his eyes, but gave in. “Alright.”

Clearing his throat, he began to read:

“Dear little brother,

since that golden net incident, you have never given me the chance to tell you, how I feel. And because you won't listen to me, I'm sending you this letter. I beg you, read all of it. When you've finished, you can burn it, if you want, just … hear me out …”

Athena looked over his shoulders, as he read it to her.

She was actually impressed.

Never ever would she have pinned Ares to write something even remotely as deep.

If she hadn't known better, she would have thought it was Aphrodite's hand – but it obviously wasn't; her writing was cursive and ornate, as opposed to Ares' clean, but plain hand.

Except that what he had written was so genuine and candid … alright, it was definitely Ares.

Hephaistos read everything, but his voice grew shakier with every paragraph.

By the end, he was full-on crying.

“Fucking arsehole!”, he choked and burned the letter in his hands, “First he gives me a lesson about love, rubs his relationship with Aphrodite in my face and then he tells me, that he loves me?! Of all the things he could have written, this …”

Gently Athena stroked his back, as he sobbed into his hands.

It took him a while to compose himself.

The goddess of wisdom had left, after reading the second letter to him, as he had asked.

Hephaistos just needed some time alone.

He … he didn't know how to deal with this.

Everything was way too much and too confusing and he needed distance.

The other gods could wait for their stuff. Or they could just ask his assistants to finish the crap.

He would go on a holiday trip.

Far away from Olympos.

Preferably even away from Hellas.

Sicilia?

That was the place.

He hadn't seen Vulcanus in a while.

“… And that's basically, what happened.”

“Hm …”

Vulcanus peeked at his Greek colleague from behind his cup.

“Let me check, if I got this right”, he spoke, “You avenged yourself on the adulterers by placing a curse on their innocent daughter. A girl, who never did anything to you aside from that one flaw she can't help – that she was conceived through adultery – which, as I just said, really isn't her fault, who was pretty much as pure as the rays of the sun above”, the Italian god commented. “Well, I'm not going to question your motives. But do tell me: are you proud of yourself and of what you have done to Harmonia?”

Hephaistos didn't answer immediately. He was just stubbornly staring into the fire.

Alone, Vulcanus already knew the answer, long before the older god spoke.

They didn't meet often, but knew each other oddly well – as if they were brothers.

Perhaps in a sense they were.

Finally Hephaistos admitted: “No, I'm not.”

The Italian god cleared his throat: “Y'know, I have found, that time can fix that kind of shit. Revenge isn't always needed. Besides, you already exposed and publicly embarrassed them and divorced Aphrodite, it was not necessary to get back at her. Why make a cruel and complicated revenge plan, when you can just … let it go? I know it's easy to say and hard to do, but it's true. Think about it; is she that important to you, that you cannot forgive their betrayal, even after thousands of years? Trust me. Revenge isn't always the right thing. It doesn't make you a good person in any way.”

The Greek god sighed in obvious frustration.

But his facial features gradually softened into a pensive expression.

Eventually his face became determined, he muttered a begrudging “Ugh, fine”, rolled his wheelchair around and bid his colleague goodbye.

“What will you do now?”, Vulcanus wanted to know, as he stepped aside to let his colleague out.

Hephaistos turned around and was (surprisingly) smiling.

“Travel to Illyria. I'm going to meet with an old friend.”

“Thank you for the ride, Helios”, Hephaistos thanked his driver.

The sun Titan laughed merrily: “Hey, anything for my best buddy! Besides, I understand what you're up to, man. You sort things out and if you need a ride back to Olympos, just call me up, 'kay?”

The blacksmith god smiled: “Sure.”

“Alright!”, the Titan exclaimed and jumped back onto his chariot, “I'll continue my trip across the sky, before your king gets the vapours.”

The younger deity could only giggle.

The Titan grinned, before spurring his horses and riding off.

With a fond smile Hephaistos looked after Helios. The gods could say about that guy what they wanted, but he was a really good and reliable friend.

But his smile faded immediately, as he turned to the temple that contained the petrified remains of his niece and her husband.

This would be incredibly hard and he wasn't sure, if he actually knew what to say.

But he wasn't a coward and he definitely was no quitter.

He wasn't sure, if Harmonia could hear him, but he definitely owed her an apology – even, if he had to give it to a rock, since her and Kadmos' remains had turned to stone through Zeus' will.

That's my fault … it's all my fault …

“Alright”, he murmured to himself. “Time to finally man up and face the shit I've done.”

He entered the building and to his relief found, that it was empty.

Good.

It would be Tartaros to explain to a mortal priest or visitor, what a tan, young-looking man with long black hair and a wheelchair (it wasn't like the mortals knew those yet) was doing inside a funerary temple with an offering of incense, cinnamon, holy water and a bouquet of white roses. Bringing flowers was silly; the goddess turned mortal was now dwelling in Elysion, where the flowers grew fairest, but she would have been happy either way, he knew.

She was a real sweetheart … I have to give it to her parents, they raised her well.

He looked around the interior.

It was a plain, almost minimalistic temple and behind a simplistic altar, on an elevated pedestal stood a statue of two medium-sized Drakones³, entwined in eternal embrace. Thus the couple had passed on and thenceforth their petrified bodies had remained this way. It was both romantic and tragic.

He sighed: “Hello, Harmonia. It's been a while. The last time we saw each other was at your wedding, I believe?”

He set his offerings on the altar with some effort.

“I'm sorry I took so long. Well, for that and a lot of other things. This is kind of stupid, because I'm here talking to a rock, when I should be saying this to your face. But I can't, so this will have to do. I don't know, how much you knew. Or if you can hear me, for that matter. Still I owe you an explanation … and an apology.”

Suddenly he was startled by a gust of wind, but when he looked around, no one was there.

After looking around cautiously, he just assumed, that it had been the draft and turned back to the stone.

“Well, there really are no words to make up for what I have done to you to get back at your parents, but I will try anyway.”

He began with an explanation, then a confession, before attempting to apologise.

Eventually he said: “So … that's it. That's kinda how I ruined your entire family out of petty revenge. I know that a sorry won't cut it. But I'll try anyway. I'm sorry. I had no right to do what I did. Because of my grudge against your parents, I destroyed your every chance at happiness. Because of the circumstances you were conceived in, I hated you, even though you never did anything to warrant it. Back then I did it to make them suffer and didn't care about how you would handle all of this. Today I know, that I was in the wrong. I should have just let it go and instead I made an innocent woman suffer out of selfish spite. What I have done is unforgivable and I do not ask for your forgiveness, that I don't deserve. Still I want you to know, that I regret what I did. So I hope that you can hear this. If you hate me now, that's fine (you have all reason to), but if you can find it in your heart to believe me, that would be more than I could already ask for. Please believe me, when I say … I'm sorry. I deeply, truly am.”

Finishing his apology, he took a deep breath.

There. It had been done.

Suddenly he felt a lot lighter, even though he had been talking to a rock.

For a moment the temple was quiet.

Then a voice made him almost yelp.

“That was a beautiful apology. Would've been better, if you had said it to her face, though.”

Hephaistos turned his wheelchair around as quickly as he could.

“How long have you been here?”, he gasped.

Ares shrugged: “I saw Helios drop you off here, when I came, so I think it's safe to say: the entire time.”

The smith frowned; so that had been the gust of wind from earlier!

The war god shook his head and approached.

He too was carrying offerings in his hands and arms; a giant, quite colourful bouquet of exquisite flowers, a bottle of perfume, a peplos, incense and a bowl with fruit.

Ares set his rich offerings down on the altar, next to the one Hephaistos had put there earlier.

Then he crouched down next to the younger god's wheelchair with a sigh.

For a few minutes, they sat in awkward silence, before Hephaistos cleared his throat.

“Ares, maybe you should fold your wings away, before-”

“May they see 'em”, the older cut him off. “They already have before. They know the father of their late queen.”

Hephaistos could see the other's wings tense up and the fingers claw at the stone floor, before Ares composed himself.

“You have some nerve, showing your face here.”

“I know.”

“Was about fucking time though.”

“Yes, it was.”

“I've read your letters.”

“Have you?”, Ares muttered.

“Yes. In Athena's presence, like you wanted.”

“Good.”

“I've burned them thereupon.”

The war god's mouth quirked upward. “Figured you would.”

“Those letters were crap.”

“Sure, whatever you say. And still you cried, before you burned them. Daddy's Owl told me. If you really had thought they were crap, you wouldn't have shed a tear.”

Hephaistos couldn't help but be surprised, that the red-eyed god knew him so well, but he didn't voice it.

Apprehensively he watched his older brother.

Ares was grinning lopsidedly, but his red wings rustled and twitched in irritation, giving away that he wasn't remotely as casual or amused as he was pretending to be.

To be fair, neither was the younger.

“I still think that you're a prick, Ares.”

“I know. And you're right. But I'm gonna level with you, brother – you've been an arse too.”

Hephaistos smiled bitterly: “Yes, there's no denying I was.”

“Ya know, when Aphrodite and I first realised it … that thing with the necklace … we were really mad at you, both of us.”

“I don't blame you.”

“Good.”

Ares craned his neck to look his brother directly in the eyes.

“Why did you do this to Harmonia? How could you? Why to her? She … she …”

His toneless voice wavered and he quickly looked away again.

“It wasn't my intention at first”, the smith whispered. “The necklace was meant for her mother.”

Ares didn't respond. He didn't have to.

Hephaistos knew, what he would have said, if he'd had the words to say it. He also knew why he still wouldn't have said anything, even if he could have.

“I'm sorry”, he finally whispered.

Ironic, really; never would he have imagined, that he would apologise to Ares of all gods.

The red-eyed god didn't answer beyond a heavy sigh.

The blacksmith god didn't know how long they sat in silence hereafter.

But at some point Ares placed his left hand onto the armrest of his brother's wheelchair – cautiously, as if to give the other the option to just slap it away, if he didn't want it there.

Hephaistos' brown eyes widened.

That was a rather tentative and gentle gesture from the abrasive, warlike madman that was Ares.

Then again, who was he to complain?

With a tiny smile he took the hesitant hand and gave it a firm squeeze.

---

1) Algea: the Greek Daimones (spirits) of pain, suffering and grief, bringers of weeping and tears, daughters of Eris, the goddess of strife. 2) Pontos: the primordial personification of the sea, a son of Gaia. 3) Drakones: serpentine dragons (mostly just enormous snakes)

#Greek Mythology #roman mythology #ares #Aphrodite #ares and aphrodite #athena #hephaistos #harmonia #helios #tw: character death #grief #mourning #reconciliation #harmony never truly dies

12 notes · View notes

themyskira · 7 years ago

Note

What do you think about the greg rucka twist that the amazons were keeping Ares safely locked up? I think it was a nice call back to Aphrodite and love being the only thing to sooth war but it does take away one of WW best villains. What would you think about if they did a percy Jackson and had the gods have different personas running around? like ares could be safe but the Mars persona is somewhere lurking waiting....?

I think it worked beautifully in that story, and I think that in that single issue -- in that single climactic scene -- where Diana triumphs over Phobos and Deimos by meeting their force and violence with loving submission, Rucka showed a better understanding of Marston’s ideas than Morrison did in all of the embarrassment that is Earth One.

But outside the context of Rucka’s run, it does create an ongoing problem because it means that some of Diana’s most interesting supporting characters (the Amazons and Ares) are effectively locked away and out of reach.

On the other hand, since the only people writing Wondy right now are lazy incompetents like James Robinson, I also feel a bit safer knowing it’s just that bit harder for him to mess with those characters. So that’s a silver lining.

As for the Roman gods, I think there’s definite story potential there! At first glance, Mars is a much less antagonistic god than his Greek counterpart, because whereas Ares represents violence and bloodlust, Mars is more about military might as a means to achieve stability/peace -- but you could also interpret that as war as a tool of imperialism/colonialism.

#comics talk #ilikelookingatthings

10 notes · View notes

kristablogs · 5 years ago

Text

Where does fear actually come from?

Convention thinking says that the root of all fear lies in our brains. But what comes before then? (The National Museum in Oslo/)

Excerpt from Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear by Eva Holland. Reprinted with permission of The Experiment.

Fear, it seems at first, should be easy to identify and define. To borrow from that old judicial decision about the definition of obscenity: we know it when we feel it.

Putting that feeling into words can be harder. G. Stanley Hall, the nineteenth-century founder of the American Journal of Psychology and the first president of the American Psychological Association, described fear as “the anticipation of pain,” and that seems like a pretty good general definition to me. Fear of violence? Anticipatory pain. Fear of a breakup, the loss of someone you love? Anticipatory pain. Fear of sharks, of plane crashes, of falling off a cliff? Check, check, and check.

But what we need, really, isn’t just a solid catch-all definition. What we need, to understand the role of fear in our lives, is to examine the layers and varieties of fears that can afflict us.

There’s the sharp jab of alarm when you sense a clear, imminent threat: That car is going to hit me. There’s the duller, more dispersed foreboding, the feeling of malaise whose source you can’t quite pinpoint: Something is wrong here. I don’t feel safe. There are spiraling, sprawling existential fears: I am going to flunk this exam, tank this interview, fail at life. And there are precise, even banal, ones: Pulling this Band-Aid off is going to hurt. How do they all fit together? Or, put differently, to what extent does each stand apart?

According to Greek mythology, Ares, the god of war, had two sons, who accompanied him into battle: Phobos, the god of fear, and Deimos, the god of dread. That seems like a useful distinction to start with—fear versus dread—and it’s one that’s echoed today by our distinction between fear and anxiety. Fear, generally speaking, is regarded as being prompted by a clear and present threat: you sense danger and you feel afraid. Anxiety, on the other hand, is born from less tangible concerns: it can feel like fear but without a clear cause. Simple enough, at least in theory.

In Fear: A Cultural History, author Joanna Bourke gamely attempts to parse the distinctions between fear and anxiety. “In one case a frightening person or dangerous object can be identified: the flames searing patterns on the ceiling, the hydrogen bomb, the terrorist,” she writes. Whereas “more often, anxiety overwhelms us from some source ‘within’: there is an irrational panic about venturing outside, a dread of failure, a premonition of doom ... Anxiety is described as a more generalized state, while fear is more specific and immediate. The ‘danger object’ seems to be in front of us in fear states, while in anxiety states the individual is not consciously aware of what endangers him or her.”

But as Bourke points out, that distinction has serious limitations. It’s entirely dependent on the ability of the fearful person to identify the threat. Is it legitimately, immediately dangerous? Or is the fear abstract, “irrational”? She offers the hydrogen bomb and the terrorist as examples of potentially clear and present threats, but both can also serve as anxiety-inducing spectres, ominous even when absent.

Nerve by Eva Holland. (Courtesy of The Experiment/)

The distinction between fear and anxiety, then, can be murky, even as it can also be a useful and even necessary line to draw. But setting the issue of a threat’s clear presence aside, there’s the matter of our “fear” response.

The scientists who study our emotional lives make distinctions between different categories of feelings. There are the primary emotions, our most basic and near-universal responses, found across cultures and even appearing, or at least seeming to us to appear, in other species: fear, anger, disgust, surprise, sadness, and happiness.

Think of them like primary colors, the foundational elements of a whole rainbow of emotion. Just as red and blue in combination can be used to create all the shades of purple, you can imagine some more precise feelings as being built by the primary emotions. Horror, for instance, is fear mixed with disgust—and, maybe, some shadings of anger and surprise. Delight could be happiness with a bit of surprise stirred in. And so on.

There are also the social emotions, the feelings that don’t stand alone like the primary emotions but are generated by our relationships to others: sympathy, embarrassment, shame, guilt, pride, jealousy, envy, gratitude, admiration, contempt, and more.

Of all these, fear is perhaps the most studied. But what does it really mean to study fear? What do we even mean, exactly, when we say “fear” in the context of scientific research? That’s a more complicated question than you might expect.

Traditionally, scientists have studied “fear” in animals by measuring their reactions to threatening or unpleasant stimuli—a rat’s freezing response when it is subjected to a small electric shock, for instance. In studying humans, scientists have more options and a broader array of tools. Most importantly, humans can self-report, verbally or in writing: Yes, I felt afraid.

The complicating factor is that those two responses—the freezing and the feeling—are separate and distinct. As the neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, an expert on the brain circuitry of fear, emphasizes in his book Anxious, we know that the physical fear response and the emotional feeling of fear are produced by two different mechanisms in the body.

For a long time, the working theory held that the feeling came first, in response to the fear stimulus, and then the physical response followed from the feeling. This is what’s known as the commonsense, or Darwinian, school of thought. But that was more an assumption than a proven mechanism, and these days it has fallen out of favor.

Instead, as science has turned its attention to working out that elusive mechanism more concretely, the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has come up with an answer that, while provocative, ultimately feels right to me. The feeling, he argues in a pair of funny and wise books, Descartes’ Error and Looking for Spinoza, is actually derived from that same menu of physical reactions that we would typically view as accessories of, or adjacent to, our emotions.

For the purposes of his argument, Damasio makes an unusual distinction between “emotions”—by which, in this context, he specifically means the physical, measurable reactions of the body in response to an emotional stimulus, the physical fear response—and “feelings,” the intangible expressions of emotion in our minds. That may seem odd, or even nonsensical, but it’s a key to his case, so keep it in mind.

“We tend to believe that the hidden is the source of the expressed,” he writes in Looking for Spinoza. But he argues, instead, for a counter-intuitive reversal of that order: “Emotions”—again, meaning the physical reactions here—“and related phenomena are the foundation for feelings, the mental events that form the bedrock of our minds.”

All organisms have varying abilities to react to stimuli, from a simple startle reflex or withdrawal movement all the way up to more complex multi-part responses, like the description of our physical fear processes above, which are Damasio’s “emotions.” Some of the more basic responses might sometimes look, to our eyes, like expressions of the feeling of fear, and in fact the machinery that governs them is also implicated in the more complex processes. (My startle reflex, one of our oldest and simplest reactions, has certainly come into play at times when I’ve also felt afraid. Hello, raptors in the kitchen in Jurassic Park!) But the “emotions” are at the top of the heap in terms of complexity, and as such not all organisms are capable of generating them.

Unlike some of the simpler “fear” reactions in simpler organisms (poke a “sensitive plant,” watch its leaves curl up), our emotions can be generated by stimuli both real, in the moment, and remembered—or even imagined. That’s the gift and the burden of the human mind.

But for now, let’s stick with an in-the-moment example, like a strange noise heard in the night. The fact of the noise is captured by the sensory nerves in the ear and is relayed to the brain structures involved in triggering and then executing a response. Now your body is reacting in all the ways described above.

So far, so good? The next step, in Damasio’s formulation, is the creation of the feeling itself. We know that our bodies are laced with neurons, and that they not only send out information from the brain, they also receive it.

So after the outgoing messages have gotten our hearts pumping, our sweat beading, and so on, a series of incoming messages returns to the brain, bearing all of that information about our physical state. Our brains, Damasio explains, maintain incredibly complex maps of the state of the body, from our guts to our fingertips, at all times.

And here’s the core of his argument: when the incoming messages bearing news of the body’s physical fear-state alter these maps, that’s when the feeling itself arises. Your brain learns from your body that your heart is pounding, your pupils are dilated, your goosebumps are standing at attention. Your brain does the math and says, Aha! I am afraid!

In his 1884 essay, “What is an emotion?” the philosopher and psychologist William James wrote,

If we fancy some strong emotion and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind, no “mind-stuff” out of which the emotion can be constituted, and that a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception is all that remains. . . . What kind of an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling neither of quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of weakened limbs, neither of gooseflesh nor of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible for me to think.

Damasio picks up where James left off. But he doesn’t just draw on Victorian-era philosophizing to make his argument. He also works from case studies and his own research; for instance, the case of a Parkinson’s patient in Paris. The woman, who was sixty-five years old and had no history of depression or other mental illness, was undergoing an experimental treatment for her Parkinson’s symptoms. It involved the use of an electrical current to stimulate motor-control areas of the brain stem via tiny electrodes.

Nineteen other patients had undergone the treatment successfully. But when the current entered the woman’s brain, she stopped chatting with the doctors, lowered her eyes, and her face slumped.

Seconds later, she began to cry, and then to sob. “I’m fed up with life,” she said, through her tears. “I’ve had enough ... I don’t want to live anymore ... I feel worthless.” The team, alarmed, stopped the current, and within ninety seconds the woman had stopped crying. Her face perked up again, the sadness melting away. What had just happened? she asked.

It turned out, according to Damasio, that instead of stimulating the nuclei that controlled her tremors, the electrode, infinitesimally misplaced, had activated the parts of the brain stem that control a suite of actions by the facial muscles, mouth, larynx, and diaphragm—the actions that allow us to frown, pout, and cry. Her body, stimulated not by a sad movie or bad news, had acted out the motions of sadness, and her mind, in turn, had gone to a dark, dark place. The feeling arose from the physical; her mind followed her body.

This whole thing seemed counterintuitive to me at first, reversing as it does the “commonsense” view. But then I sat back and really thought about my experience of fear. How do I recall it in my memory? How do I try to explain it to other people? The fact is that I think of it mostly in physical terms: that sick feeling in my gut, the tightness in my chest, maybe some dizziness or shortness of breath.

Think about how you actually experience the feeling of happiness, of contentment, or ease. For me, it manifests in the loosening of the eternally tense muscles in my forehead and jaw, in my neck and shoulders. My eyes open wider, losing the worried squint. I breathe more deeply.

Or think about the sheer physicality of deep grief, how it wrecks your body as well as your mind. When I look back on the worst of my grief after my mom’s death, I remember it as headaches, exhaustion, a tight chest, a sense of heaviness, and lethargy. I felt sad, yes—sadder than I’ve ever been—and it was my body that told me how sad I was.

0 notes

scootoaster · 5 years ago

Text

Where does fear actually come from?

Convention thinking says that the root of all fear lies in our brains. But what comes before then? (The National Museum in Oslo/)

Excerpt from Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear by Eva Holland. Reprinted with permission of The Experiment.

Fear, it seems at first, should be easy to identify and define. To borrow from that old judicial decision about the definition of obscenity: we know it when we feel it.

But what we need, really, isn’t just a solid catch-all definition. What we need, to understand the role of fear in our lives, is to examine the layers and varieties of fears that can afflict us.

Nerve by Eva Holland. (Courtesy of The Experiment/)

In his 1884 essay, “What is an emotion?” the philosopher and psychologist William James wrote,

Nineteen other patients had undergone the treatment successfully. But when the current entered the woman’s brain, she stopped chatting with the doctors, lowered her eyes, and her face slumped.

0 notes

lets-cleverstudentchaos-love · 5 years ago

Text

Deimos And Phobos

Demons, and phobia, what revolves around these two things? What are we as humans afraid of? One of which i can think of is the tale of demons and possession. Not to mention, that Fear and Demons(wickedness and things alike) stem from and lead to a thing man invented long ago. That is, war. War as we know it is known to ourselves, our history. Animals do not make war, insects have no cause to take arms against the plants they plant themselves on for food. What is war? What caused the first war? Why is it important we talk about war as man made and not inevitable in the cosmos and on Earth.

Two moons, revolve around the planet around War--Deimos and Phobos they are Greek in literature, and that is not the only root of their place in history. They the Greek versions of the names are attributed into the battles they would lead with the God of War-- Ares. Though Mars is a Roman God and these are Greek names, it is after-all mytholigical and important. Legend says that Greeks came up with Democracy and though some of their counterparts mainly Socrates mentioned in explicit terms that Democracy wouldn't last; or hold together a nation alone we see today that our Democracy, a government held up by pillars of the legislature, executive, and judicial and these pillars have maintained over the centuries: but will they maintain? Can these three pillars hold something up such as Democracy, that will not be overturned by War which is held together by fear and destructive forces(demons).

We speak that we know war is not good, but war in economic standards is both good and bad. Is there an upside to war? Frankly no, but war between nations is often thought of in this case, between people and not ideas and beliefs. If i was at war with an ideaoligy i would need allies i would need armor and weapons. This is the case in war against drugs, persecution, and mainly just: evilness. However to never forget is a wise tale, because we first need to understand morality and ethics before we label things such as evil. After all what was true years ago may not hold in todays time. This is a true sentiment people have, that people have memory and wars well they hold nothing but instead they do battles and fighting, perilous to the losers and to the victors: the spoils.

I want to refrain from general statements throughout this publication but at times it is neccessary, i mean not to take lite the fact that war is a man made invention and comes to the poor and rich, the sinner and saint all the same. In this age, meaning the century of this publication we hold conflicts around the world, but delight in contempt and of simplicity. Convenice has tried men and women to put their mental health before their mind. What i mean is that mental health is not about pills, cures and spooking people. Mental health is about the transpiration of being human. After all we all undergo stress, and things of the sort but what mentally ill people do and say makes no sense am i right? I am talking in terms of mental illness because to breathe is a way of living but your mind can expierence things differently then any other body part. Each part of our body is useful and has been but sometimes we need to remove things to maintain our health. Often mental illness patients seek not cure but not to suffer. Let me assure you, to live with mind affliction is suffering, but there is more than meets the eye to mental illness. This world has changed, mostly for the better in the last decades but severity of that change depends on humanitarian needs. Yes people live free and die in lands liberated from war, but have you ever thought or atleast contimplated will war be abolished? Will the wars be sustained or withheld? Can we as humans, and not Gods rid the world of this disease of our souls?

I talk about minds because often it is the smarter of two foes(or stronger) that prevails, though war is very complicated and many have written about war, i offer the chronical of such a atrosity of that of war, to and atrributed to something that isnt mankind. To best explain this i will offer a simple parable. A disease inflicted upon a creature will kill it throughout time if not dealt with. The creature does not know the remedy and that which brought the disease, it simply wants and needs cured. The creature begins to wane with each day and where joy and happiness was becomes bitterness and rabid hate. The disease becomes to much and the creature lashes out on other animals, and eats and tears into them. The disease overtakes the creature, it began to not eat but inflict self harm and began to isolate, still living inside the creature was goodness, however withered and afraid the creature begins to terrorize other similar animals, and when confronted it used violence. Soon the disease feasted on that which gave the creature its beauty and intellect, and then the creature was lost. It was no more, until it died where as the disease rotted into the carcass and animals that ate became afflicted and soon this disease inflicted man because men ate animals and plants. Men were poisioned by a creature that could not threaten men's might or its stature on the food chain but because the creature was sadly afflicted it did what a demon would do. Now man was smart and quarentened the sick but still, fear of the disease came into the minds of the youth and the old then into the healthy, now the disease had completed its cycle and the world blighted with stain, could no longer eat, drink, or think without becoming infected to some degree. It took a light above this world and above man to release men then the animals then the plants and then the world of this terrible curse.

Above i laid out what a disease can do to men, but take note the fact that a disease of the mind, is a dangerous foe and we all quarrel with some parts of this disease, but remember that end, the means of salvation came not from below the sickness but above it. This is true about our sickness to our ruin and of our corruption. Man has not yet been purged collectively of this thing called war, and if no help comes from above we will let it kill the world. Unless, and in the above example i had not this solution-- but unless we can rise up through our own self-control and soverignty along with just faith in the light above we can be able to rid ourselves of this disease known as War and importantly a wide variety of other potential sicknesses. For instance, a minds ability to suffer extreme circumstances without harm done to a person needs to be carefully articulated to the stent of our education for our survival. If minds control men, a mind sickness can devestate the greater mankind. I say this not to bring panic nor fear or even demons to you but i say this with love.

As we venture to new territory our body is all we have, all we have been given. We know not all the ways or means of obtaining flesh but we should keep it as it is humble to do so. I will speak to the analogy of war and the two emisarries-- fear and demons soon but it goes without saying that if we conqure Mars, this threat of war will be less of a threat to us all. And that is good.

"I am no general, i am no marine, i am no fighter, i am no lover-- i am man, and the world will not be a victim to my demise, but a stepping stone to our rising" Andrew Cozad

I said the above words to inspire those that read with care, as i spent alot of time not researching but thinking and praying about this subject-- War. Why do we have it? Is it a part of us? Can we stop it?

I find war has its soldiers, being demons and fear, illicit fear and demons very real are these two things. As what is a demon but that which harbors war and is friend of fear? We must surmount these two buildings before we uproot the footing of war. We cannot take down war without dismmantling fear, and demons. I may be wrong- i may also be right.

Demons is a much more vauge thing than fear. Though they correlate. Think of fear as the right hand and demons the left and war the body and head of this beast we need to slay. If this case of being passive brings fear we must channle that fear and chance our stance to aggresively overcome the obstical. I will state clear and consicely that no one individual not even God in the flesh could rid the world of these two the demons and terror. After all Zues may have created man in the myths, but the truth created the power to wield lightning against the gods themselves. After all Gods to men are puny to this beast of War. Believe or dont believe, but these stances matter in life i find, and some hearts cant withstand things like death of loved ones and therefore i look to God, for the most part. I also look to truth and science. The stress of war is terrible on a society and enviorment. Therefore should we declare war on war? no, i say explore, explore and explore we will solve problems specifically fear and demons by bringing together all societies all enviorments.

0 notes

kristablogs · 5 years ago

Text

Where does fear actually come from?

Convention thinking says that the root of all fear lies in our brains. But what comes before then? (The National Museum in Oslo/)

Excerpt from Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear by Eva Holland. Reprinted with permission of The Experiment.

Fear, it seems at first, should be easy to identify and define. To borrow from that old judicial decision about the definition of obscenity: we know it when we feel it.

But what we need, really, isn’t just a solid catch-all definition. What we need, to understand the role of fear in our lives, is to examine the layers and varieties of fears that can afflict us.

Nerve by Eva Holland. (Courtesy of The Experiment/)

In his 1884 essay, “What is an emotion?” the philosopher and psychologist William James wrote,

Nineteen other patients had undergone the treatment successfully. But when the current entered the woman’s brain, she stopped chatting with the doctors, lowered her eyes, and her face slumped.

0 notes