Start to my Inquiry
My overall inquiry question is about how people can be taught to deal with fear and anxiety. My question is: How can an average person mentally overcome all fears and anxieties in their day to day life? This includes phobias, anxieties, or just getting past being scarred by training ones brian to think a certain way.
http://ataraxia.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=315189&TabID=2642548&ShowInfoSect=249320
http://www.dealingwithfear.org
It is hard to imagine life without fear which is why I chose these resources because they demonstrate what I am trying to learn to do through my inquiry paper. Both these sources teach me something about fear: how it works, where it comes from, how it is eliminated. These topics are the keys to answering my inquiry. They are both centered on people who have no fear and their method of accomplishing that. One is about a mental disorder where a person is incapable of experiencing fear and the other is a philosophy that helps one overcome fear. Ataraxia is a mental disorder where the subjects experience a freedom from fear, and basically what I want to know is whether or not a normal person can, in a way, develop ataraxia to deal with difficult situations and then turn it "off" when the situation has passed. The beliefs of Buddhism are all about conquering fear and achieving enlightenment. They hold that fear is unnecessary and that by teaching your mind to think a certain way you can eliminate fear. This is also exactly what I am looking for. These monks that have eliminated all their fear and worry have demonstrated what I am talking about because they have trained their mind to not respond to situations with fear. What this research shows is that not only is it possible for fear to be completely overcome, but that other people are trying the same thing and doing research on it. Researching how ataraxia works and the philosophies of Buddhism will be the key to writing my inquiry paper and answering the question. Perhaps there is a way to develop a drug that can temporarily cause symptoms of ataraxia or mental training that can teach people to overcome fear without dedicating their whole life to the developing of that skill. These are the answers I hope to find when researching my topic.
This was an important document because both my inquiry question and my solution were basically found when writing it. This work guided my inquiry paper.
http://ataraxia.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=315189&TabID=2642548&ShowInfoSect=249320
http://www.dealingwithfear.org
It is hard to imagine life without fear which is why I chose these resources because they demonstrate what I am trying to learn to do through my inquiry paper. Both these sources teach me something about fear: how it works, where it comes from, how it is eliminated. These topics are the keys to answering my inquiry. They are both centered on people who have no fear and their method of accomplishing that. One is about a mental disorder where a person is incapable of experiencing fear and the other is a philosophy that helps one overcome fear. Ataraxia is a mental disorder where the subjects experience a freedom from fear, and basically what I want to know is whether or not a normal person can, in a way, develop ataraxia to deal with difficult situations and then turn it "off" when the situation has passed. The beliefs of Buddhism are all about conquering fear and achieving enlightenment. They hold that fear is unnecessary and that by teaching your mind to think a certain way you can eliminate fear. This is also exactly what I am looking for. These monks that have eliminated all their fear and worry have demonstrated what I am talking about because they have trained their mind to not respond to situations with fear. What this research shows is that not only is it possible for fear to be completely overcome, but that other people are trying the same thing and doing research on it. Researching how ataraxia works and the philosophies of Buddhism will be the key to writing my inquiry paper and answering the question. Perhaps there is a way to develop a drug that can temporarily cause symptoms of ataraxia or mental training that can teach people to overcome fear without dedicating their whole life to the developing of that skill. These are the answers I hope to find when researching my topic.
This was an important document because both my inquiry question and my solution were basically found when writing it. This work guided my inquiry paper.