Amos and guest JHall, too cool for words.

Pedant alert, back to people talking about things they know less about than I do (grinning! Big grinning!) Especially since this is what the thread is about!

Anger arises out of fear. So does shyness. So does [...]virtually all human emotional dysfunctionality ...

Actually, fear is any non-sessile organism's response to perceived danger, and activates the particular amygdala that tells it to take its organic ass away. Anger, in contrast, is a social organism's response to perceived deception. Different parts of the brain, different chemicals, everything is different. Both may lead to violence, but through separate pathways.

The basic emotions all serve distinct biological functions.

Also, shyness IS fear, it doesn't arise out of it. And paralyzing shyness is social anxiety; regular shyness isn't. For example, the age at which children go through what people like to call stranger anxiety - it's right when they are becoming separate little locomotors and it keeps them near their kith and kin. Calling it an anxiety makes it sound dysfunctional, but it's the opposite. Had it been called Familiar-preferring instead it wouldn't sound nearly as interesting.

In the complete absence of fear, one experiences ideal relationship. In the complete absence of fear one usually experiences death, and rather quickly too. Otherwise why would you step out your front door instead of your penthouse window?

I think what the poster was going for was TRUST.