FEARS

“ There is no fear without some hope, and no hope without some fear. ” - - - Baruch Spinoza

Fear is a great equalizer. In the battlefield, you want your opponent to fear you more than you fear him.

Fear can be considered a rational reaction to a stressful situation. Fear is also a mechanism to control one's thought processes, consciously and subconsciously, to arrive at an immediate solution if one is in danger.  It is primitive instinct behavior - - - a survival mechanism, born out of necessity when man was not top predator. Fear of the dark is common because in man's origin, the beasts that preyed upon them hunted at night. Every twitch, creak or sound in the pitch of darkness would be a signal - - - triggers the fear response and possible action.

In modern society, fears take on other forms. Some people are fearful of success, in business or relationships. They self-sabotage themselves in order to avoid the responsibility that comes with such success. Some people fear high buildings, bridges, crowds, elevators, confined spaces, the outdoors, insects - - - things that they can detour around in their daily lives. 

But in today's modern society, man does not fear death.

Terrorists strap explosives to themselves to become suicide bombers.
People recklessly text and drive on highways.
People abuse alcohol and drugs to stages of overdose.

But rarely in modern culture is fear of death represented in television shows. If at all, it is a gag comedy sketch on a show like Family Guy. Even the mayhem in the Harry Potter series, the characters were noble in the face of their own demise. Stoic. Reserved. 

In LOST, we know many of the main characters had typical fears. But can you recall any fixating on their own possible death?  Some could say when Sayid died in the temple, Jack and Hurley may have saw their future in the still body of their friend. 

Then in the sideways world, when told he was dead, Jack had no reaction. He had no reaction that everyone else around him was dead. It really didn't matter to him, or perhaps, deep down he already knew.  His one hope was to reunite with his father, which he did do. So perhaps, that hope canceled out any fear of death.