Fear, and the Roots Thereof

Fear is a curious topic, which I've never really explored fully, despite using it comparatively frequently in the last few posts as a concept to be taken as universally understood. Looking back, that was probably a vaguely foolish thing to do, and I should promptly explore what I actually meant.

Rationally, fear consists of a feeling that you do not want whatever the future holds, or you suspect to hold, to come to pass. From what I can tell, it's an extension on the basic reflex of "Oh, that fire hurts, I will take my hand out of it" to make "That fire will hurt, and I'm scared of my hand being in it.". That's what I see on the surface anyway. Something which can be perceived to be "bad" naturally imposes "fear" in the mind of the viewer. In this sense, fear comes in near limitless forms. Nearly anything which is "Bad" can be "feared". A state of mind, a person, a sensation, a scenario, a loss of friendship, the thoughts of another, an ultimatum, anything can be the vessel in which fear arrives in you. This doesn't seem a particularly good state of affairs to be in, in terms of life, but we trudge on. The weight of all bad events of the future are constantly bearing down of us, but we continue, mostly without a care. This seems, in light of recent thoughts, rather foolish. I can only assume that we naturally developed fear as a form of stopping bad things happening to us as much, but at the same time developed a system of determining when this fear is actually necessary. Some bad things we simply accept, despite the repercussions that come with them. Is this bravery? I doubt it. He without fear is not brave, merely stupid. It is the one who has fear in his heart but acts regardless who is brave.

Should I take that into account? It's all well and good to invent a proverb and use it to justify an action to take place, but I think that's even more stupid. For the current situation the fear is dependant on information I'm unsure of. Is it a matter of probability? Perhaps. Would taking a risk help?

Risk isn't a notably advised course of action in terms of fear. If it is a matter of Action A leading to either Situation B or C, B being good, C being bad, but could be either, is it worth taking Action A? I can only assume it's a matter of whether the gain of Situation B outweighs the loss of Situation C.

A matter of weighing up the options then? Then the more information available the better, to accurately judge them.

Tricky.