Fear is a relative thing; its effects are relative to power.
Interpretation
Fear's impact depends on one's power or control over a situation.
This quote highlights the idea that fear is not an absolute experience; instead, it varies in intensity and effect based on individual circumstances and the level of power one holds. Those who feel powerless may experience fear more acutely than those who feel in control, suggesting that fear is closely tied to one's ability to influence their surroundings.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges, this quote could underscore the importance of empowerment.
At night, in the garden, it occurs to you that it might have been your heart that left you as you reached the capital. Your heart might not have travelled well, closed up in its cavity, quivering and gnawing at the bars of your ribcage during the commute. It might be tracking north now, along edgelands, past spoil-heaps and stands of pylons, under motorway passes, back to the higher ground. Back to him.
There's been some research in cognitive science, I'm told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of people who are, as Pascal puts it, so made that they cannot believe. To us, when people talk about faith, it's white noise.
No storyteller has been able to dream up anything as fantastically unlikely as what really does happen in this mad Universe.
Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.
If we say, 'I believe in Jesus,' but it doesn't affect the way we live, the answer is not that now we need to add hard work to our faith so much as that we haven't truly understood or believed in Jesus at all.
The urge to revolt is one of the essential dimensions of human nature.
When I left Merle was wearing a bungalow apron and rolling pie crust. She came to the door wiping her hands on the apron and kissed me on the mouth and began to cry and ran back into the house, leaving the doorway empty [...] I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again. (p. 262)
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.