ESL Blogs

Oi there

      I would like to challenge Eric’s challenge, but I’ll do it in free style, neither American nor British style.

      First of all, I really don’t think that “challenge” is interchangeable with “fear”, these two words pertain to two, radically different dimensions, something challenging does not have to evoke fear, it does not really have to be associated with fear. To my humble thinking, something challenging calls for a higher level of skill, agility, knowledge or other personal features, not necessarily demanding courage which is needed to overcome the fear gripping the heart of somebody engaged in the said dangerous challenge.  

     Coming to the crux of our “challenge” issue, the “fear” that is supposed to be replaceable also has its ambiguous ambivalence. The fear involved in the challenge can be of variable intensity or fatality. Let’s imagine a trip through the Mojave Desert, it is challenging and the fear of dying of thirst and sun stroke in the Death Valley cannot be rated at the same level as the fear involved in the challenge of making an excursion in the everglades of Florida, although in both cases it can end with a funeral ceremony….hmmmm…although the everglade challenge may not leave a physical body to be de facto buried as it may be undergoing the process of digesting in the belly of some gator which was smart  enough not to hit the Mojave Desert trial trail.

    Methinks that it would also be worthwhile to ponder a bit over the not so dramatic scenarios of challenge and fear. This time I suggest we picture a different situation where the challenge involves other types of fear – nobody’s imputing that the intensity of the fear is lesser then the fears  mentioned above. How challenging it is to stay a bit longer in the pub with some mates and down a couple more pints of beer while at the same time trying to belittle the fear of what may encounter us as we swagger into our home some hours past midnight. This can only be compared to the fear associated with the challenge of a mission flight, the imminent and unavoidable ravages may not be equally fatal, but the intensity of fright is much on the same level. Although I know a couple of guys who’d rather be shot down than face their first ladies in their night make-up.

    So, to make a final conclusion - To challenge somebody is to dare him do something, it can be something trivial or something frightful. We can challenge others in many spheres of our mundane existence, yet fear is quite a different feeling…. It gnaws at our hearts for many reasons – we may fear that our words could hurt the feelings of somebody, especially if that body is dear to us; we may fear for the wellbeing of our friends or beloved ones and in many cases fear is a live saving factor… Actually the ancient Greeks invented  something like “phobia” to talk about fear… some have them, others just invent names for them.

   Nevertheless, it’s quite challenging to tackle our phobias..no matter what they might be.