To be afraid is a priceless education. Once you have been that scared about something, you know more about your fraility than most people, and I think that changes a person.
And after the scare comes belief. Without belief in yourself, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until understanding this how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Its like cancer. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millenium doomsday.
Why people fear cancer, because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit.
And so I believe.