Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear's path, and only I will remain."

� "Dune"

I remember someone once asking me -- suppose that the absolute, only thing standing between you and achieving your wildest desires -- is your own fear?

I mean, if you don't bother even considering it, it's not a very interesting question. You know, if you're just gonna argue that no, it isn't the only thing, there's this and that and so on and so forth...

But the thing that I find is funny, for myself... despite the fact that making one single decision cannot make us as rich as Bill Gates or as talented as -- you know, whoever you think is really talented -- in real life, for most of us, the things we may not do out of fear are nowhere near as outlandish as all that.

Myself, I know that really, I don't tend to have very complex desires -- I wish for the simple things, really. So for me the question and the quote are pertinent.

If the things I want are simple to attain yet I do not have them, and I cannot imagine what keeps me from them besides my own effort -- well, it would kind of follow, to me, that in actual fact fear is the only thing that denies me...

Fear is the mindkiller. Have you ever seen someone respond quickly and reflexively, in a move that probably saved their life -- you know, stepping out of the way of a speeding vehicle or falling weight of some sort, ducking just before something took their head off, that sort of thing? The thing that has amazed me, the couple of times I've seen that kind of thing: if but for the slightest hesitation, that person would be dead. One moment of fright, of consideration, and we'd all be cleaning them off the walls for weeks.

How do you translate that? Because facing your fear is not to say becoming foolhardy -- those who rush in really don't tend to have the longest life expectancy. No. There's something effortless, intuitive ... instinctive.

In some instances, I think what I'm talking about has been referred to as the Death Urge -- that is, our mindkiller would be the manifestation towards death, negation, the end. So to simply continue being alive is to overcome the darkness, if but for a moment.