2006 — 7th Grade 2nd Place

Ruben Adkins-Rieck, Arizona

"No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear." (Edmund Burke) I believe that this is true. Fear does rob the mind of all its powers because fear is the fear of what could be there, either in your mind or in matter. This brings up the archetype of Creatures of Nightmare. In this archetype the fear you fear most, is the one you create in your mind. This overpowers the conscious of the rest of the self. Fear is what could be there or what could happen. Therefor you have no time to reason about what is realistic before fear overtakes your mind. Fear overpowers the mind before any other idea can be reasoned.

To understand hope and fear completely we must first define the two terms. Hope is to cherish something with anticipation. You hope for ideas or things that don’t exist, but you hope for them to. Once you begin to hope for something there's nothing to stop you, except fear. Fear will shut down even the strongest of hopes. Fear of the chance that whatever you hope for won't happen. You fear the agony you will feel if you have been searching for something you have never found. It is like searching in a dark filled room for a light switch, a light switch that doesn’t exist.

Fear is defined as an unpleasant feeling that is caused by anticipation or awareness that is often extremely strong. Fear can shut the mind down. You would stop; stop and think of what could be in that dark corner. Could it be the thing that frightens you the most? That's what fear is, fear of the unknown.

Fear can also be mental. You can anticipate an event that probably won't happen but has a slight chance of occurrence that can keep you paranoid for weeks, months or even years. You fear the extremely small percentage of whatever it may be. Hope in contrast is the hope of what has a slight chance of occurrence but probably won't happen. You hope for the minor chance of good or evil, and you fear the extremely large chance it has of not happening.
Everything in the world has fear. A man has the fear of death, which is the greatest fear. The farmer has the fear of no crops, which leads to no sale, then poverty. Poverty, debts, the second thing man fears most. Hate is fear of your enemy's succeeding. You hate for them to triumph, you fear them winning. Even hope has fear. The fear of what you want or don’t want to happen succeeds. Fear begins the road to suffrage.

Finally, fear can overcome everything. It can rule over the self. Fear is a tyrant; it has complete power over you. Fear can kill your mental stability. It can lead you to insanity or paranoia. The fear that you have of what may be under the bed when you're young is the same fear you have of death when you are old. Fear is what you want it to be. Fear is by far the strongest force humans have ever unveiled.

Kids Philosophy Slam Home Page