# "The only meaningful choice is between fear and love." **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 25, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-meaningful-choice-is-between-fear-and-love/623021 "2012-05-25T00:09:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-meaningful-choice-is-between-fear-and-love/623021/1 "2012-05-25T00:09:06Z")
A Facebook friend just posted this: > [@](#): > > “There is no right or wrong behavior. The only meaningful choice is between fear and love.” -Gerald Jampolsky, Ph. D Having seen _Donnie Darko_ a few years ago, I grinned and promptly Googled up the appropriate response: > [@](#): > > Donnie: Life isn’t that simple. I mean who cares if Ling Ling returns the wallet and keeps the money? It has nothing to do with either fear or love. > Kitty Farmer: Fear and love are the deepest of human emotions. > Donnie: Okay. But you’re not listening to me. There are other things that need to be taken into account here. Like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can’t just lump everything into these two categories and then just deny everything else! Only, she was totally unironically quoting [some actual self-help dude](http://www.jerryjampolsky.com/). I don’t know who should be more embarrassed. (Also can’t help wondering if the movie claptrap is based on his work - he evidently wrote that phrase in 1984, so it could be!) ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-meaningful-choice-is-between-fear-and-love/623021/2 "2012-05-25T02:46:12Z")
According to Freud, what comes between fear and sex? Funf! ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-meaningful-choice-is-between-fear-and-love/623021/3 "2012-05-26T01:25:43Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > (Also can’t help wondering if the movie claptrap is based on his work - he evidently wrote that phrase in 1984, so it could be!) I googled “[Gerald Jampolsky child pornography](http://www.google.ca/search?q=Gerald+Jampolsky&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=rcs#hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=D1Q&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&channel=rcs&sclient=psy-ab&q=Gerald+Jampolsky+child+pornography&oq=Gerald+Jampolsky+child+pornography&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=serp.3...16075.27268.0.28599.18.18.0.0.0.0.258.3798.0j4j14.18.0...0.0.tpg5MwcTyvk&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=f79f1491e123c8a1&biw=1240&bih=840)” and didn’t come up with anything obvious. Do you remember what Jim Cunningham called his therapy? Was it attitudinal something? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-meaningful-choice-is-between-fear-and-love/623021/4 "2012-05-26T06:39:03Z")
Funny, I recently had lunch with a humanitarian leader who has saved millions of lives through his work and leadership over the course of decades. He literally changed the world, and spent most of his career at the highest levels of the US government. Anyway, we shared some beers and were philosophizing. This is a guy whose brain and experience works on a level I can barely comprehend. We were discussing the origin of the Rwanda genocide (which he was there for, along with just about every atrocitiy in the last three decades), and he concluded that what allows these atrocities to happen is…fear. We came up with the antidote for fear is intellectual curiousity, and the ulatimate foundation of humanitarian work is empathy. So, claptrap or not, people much smarter than I see something to this line of thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-only-meaningful-choice-is-between-fear-and-love/623021/5 "2012-05-26T07:07:51Z")
I have experienced fear and love at the same time. The thing that kept me carrying on was a sense of self.