Quicksand

"All of us are prone to repeat ourselves. There is a marked lethargy in the human psyche, and resistance to change is deep seated in us. We all seem to fear change, and with some people this fear is so overwhelming that it paralyzes them. Others conceal their fear by behaving "as if" they were free of it; they challenge themselves even at the risk of their own life. Yet, they may be daredevils only in certain areas, while in others they are dominated by the kind of arrested development that springs from fear. For instance, a person can be utterly heroic and self transcending while scaling the most treacherous mountain on earth, but down below in the valley, their fear bound conservatism is locking them into self defeating patterns of emotional dependence, moral rigidity or neurotic avoidance of anything that challenges their subjective picture of the world. On top of the mountain they sense a freedom that escapes them in the valley. But that freedom can only be illusory so long as the mental habit patterns impelling the mountaineer to seek the adventure of the climb are still intact.. True freedom dawns when the tendencies that create the ego in the first place are transcended. This spiritual self-transcendence is true heroism." Georg Feuerstein