Cowardice

Fear causes a spiritual mutation in some when in their own shadow they perceive the demise of reason, of hard-won identity. The mask of Apollo is glowing but brittle. The vicissitudes that chaos sows in one's path cause cracks, first minute and then not so minute. The terror born of unpredictability is unavoidable for most. It can, and often does, engender a mental state of cowardice. Faced with this fear-taken-root there are two approaches. The first is to become a bully. To externalize one's fear onto the target of another by means of aggression, cruelty and violence. The second is to face one's fear in the mirror. To examine and interrogate it and ultimately to make peace with it as a feature of this existence.