The trigger might be perceivable, an alarm sounds, or it might be unperceivable, an unconscious memory fires. But there’s always a trigger, fear is always a reaction. ?
Oh sure! Since I was five I’ve always had this inclination to want to know “everything about the subject” when I heard someone talking about something I didn’t know, no matter how difficult it was to understand (that’s what questions are for).
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Is that question based on the widespread belief that I am what I think I am, with all my memories and experiences, along with the memories and experiences of others that I have heard from themselves or others and that I have consciously or unconsciously retained in my memory? I wonder what power a trigger could have if I didn’t identify with all that?
What do you think @rickScott?
Without fear you can’t cope with danger. So fear is a reaction to danger. But Jiddu Krishnamurti said you need to be free from fear to be healthy inside. I agree with both statement. Jiddu was enlightened human being. So he knew truth about fear.
I think we’re starting off on the wrong foot when we don’t distinguish fear from anxiety, and we’re doing it because K didn’t make the distinction.
I don’t think it’s helpful or useful to talk about anxiety as if it is fear because fear is the feeling that there is danger and one must be on high alert. The feeling lasts only as long as it takes to determine what to do to avoid the danger. Anxiety, however, can last last indefinitely, and it has an innervating effect instead of the stimulating effect of awareness of possible or actual danger.
Thank you Crina for taking the time to respond to my question. I will give it some thought.
Here’s a quick comment from AI: “When fear dominates our minds, it can indeed create a psychological prison characterized by a sense of safety and comfort within the confines of familiar thoughts and beliefs. This state of “psychological comfort” arises from the mind’s tendency to cling to what it knows, even if it is limiting or detrimental.”
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Yes, fear is an alarm going off, and since we know an alarm can always be a false alarm, our attention is on determining what caused, triggered the alarm to know whether we need to do something or not right now.
Anxiety can be a false alarm too, but you never know until things do or don’t unfold as predicted, so all you can do is take the precautions you can, and worry about those you cannot.
For me both anxiety and fear seem to be driven by the same underlying thing: aversion to the anticipation of suffering. Granted, anxiety manifests in a different way than fear. (Especially GAD.)
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And both fear and anxiety release the same neurotransmitters (adrenaline and cortisol) activated by the amygdala in the brain.
They’re similar but significantly different, so I don’t lump them together. If you read this thread you can see how the two are conflated, and how this perpetuates confusion.
And danger is? 
Again, danger is?
All this implies time and therefore thought and will to act… but attention does not need any of this, since it has its own action that does not depend on time, nor on thought and will.
Thanks again, Rick! 
- I see anxiety as a background, a chronic, vague, generalized worrying without a clear reason, many reasons
- I see fear as an acute surge of energy, coming from a deeper existential place, with a stronger force
That may be true, but I don’t know. Do you?
The answer to this question is irrelevant
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There is fear of bodily harm and of mental harm. They are interdependent, feed back into each other.
What are ways you might be ‘injured’ mentally?
Would you say this is based on a strong desire of the self to survive at any cost?
Do you mean to be ‘injured’ only mentaly?
Is that even possible, since body-mind are so interdependent? How about: injured mainly mentally.
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