Fear: Stuck in a Bind

Within a musical named The Civil War, there is a piece, "The Peculiar Institution." In this piece there is a group of lyrics that really speak to me. They are as follows:
       "And it feels more like dying than living when somebody ain't free."
Though these lyrics are apt to describe the situation the actor's are portraying, I feel they can also be applied to other situations. When the words are seen alone, out of context of the musical, their meaning can begin to relate to many situations. I consider fear to be one of the strongest binds against a person's freedom, and as the lyrics say, a life without freedom feels more like death.

With the conclusion that fear is an enemy of freedom and a restriction to a fulfilled life, I am similarly reminded of the poem "A dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes:        

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.Or does it explode? This makes me not only question the future of that deferred deam, but also further encourages me to ponder the future of the deferring dreamer. What happens to the people who defer their dreams? Why did they defer thier dreams? Did fear keep them from fulfilling their dreams? Do they die with the regret that they never sought to answer their greatest "what if" or greatest "I wish?" Do they die feeling as if they had never lived? Do they wish they had lived chasing their dreams rather than slowly dying in a nightmare? Do they find relief from the burden of regret only in death? And to think, that burden began with a bind: fear.

How much freer would they have been without fear clinging to their hearts and chaining their souls? Without that bind, life would have been their's for the taking, freedom absolute. If they had persued life in the fashion they had deepest wished, rather than as the aimeless wanderer fear had molded them into, they could have died knowing that they had lived. Their last breath, the freest they ever had.