1/27/16
1/23/16
Blast from the past
The other thing that seems weird to me is the prevalence of 'impostor' stories - you know, like, The Return of Martin Guerre, or (more recently), Phoenix. I don't know how anyone could mistake a loved one's voice for someone else's, whether they've been disfigured, or missing for 10 years, or whatever. I mean, one of the dudes at my car repair shop could call me out of the blue in 10 years, and I'd know exactly who he was - voices are as unique as fingerprints. So as a plot point, it just doesn't hold water.
Angstious
This is my first post since 2010. Since my Dad died. And I'm typing it on a smartphone in the middle of a blizzard.
I've been thinking a lot about anxiety lately. Probably because there's been more of it than usual in my life these last few years. I think that many people look at it as if it were some deeper brand of pessimism - why do you let yourself worry about stuff like that?! Look at the statistics; the chances of [insert tragedy] are practically nil! There's no benefit in being so negative!
...But I don't really have the sense that anxiety is actually rooted in negative thinking or pessimism. It's not some bizarrely self-indulgent clinging to fear and disaster. To me, it feels more like the 'it won't happen to me' mechanism inside people gets broken. Or stunted, so it only functions some of the time, or in certain situations.
-You know that mechanism, that self-protective delusion that allows folks to go about their daily lives, secure in the knowledge that they have a future, secure in the knowledge that they'll make it to work, being able to focus on the way the Starbucks barista misspelled their name, or how long it'll take them to finish that report for their boss, instead of getting caught up in the real facts of their everyday vulnerability and mortality.
So I think for folks with anxiety, that certain security has been swept away- either by genetics, or socialization, or trauma. They realize- they are actively conscious in real time- that they are not immune. To anything. And the older they get, and the more crazy-ass shit they hear about, the less immune they feel.
Sometimes the immunity mechanism works for everything except elevators. Or bridges. Or planes. Or heights. Sometimes it's had so many holes poked in it by life that there are only shreds of it left. But it's not negativity- it's really the absence of a comfortable delusion- cause bad stuff can happen to anyone at any time.
I guess the key is in making peace with that.
I've been thinking a lot about anxiety lately. Probably because there's been more of it than usual in my life these last few years. I think that many people look at it as if it were some deeper brand of pessimism - why do you let yourself worry about stuff like that?! Look at the statistics; the chances of [insert tragedy] are practically nil! There's no benefit in being so negative!
...But I don't really have the sense that anxiety is actually rooted in negative thinking or pessimism. It's not some bizarrely self-indulgent clinging to fear and disaster. To me, it feels more like the 'it won't happen to me' mechanism inside people gets broken. Or stunted, so it only functions some of the time, or in certain situations.
-You know that mechanism, that self-protective delusion that allows folks to go about their daily lives, secure in the knowledge that they have a future, secure in the knowledge that they'll make it to work, being able to focus on the way the Starbucks barista misspelled their name, or how long it'll take them to finish that report for their boss, instead of getting caught up in the real facts of their everyday vulnerability and mortality.
So I think for folks with anxiety, that certain security has been swept away- either by genetics, or socialization, or trauma. They realize- they are actively conscious in real time- that they are not immune. To anything. And the older they get, and the more crazy-ass shit they hear about, the less immune they feel.
Sometimes the immunity mechanism works for everything except elevators. Or bridges. Or planes. Or heights. Sometimes it's had so many holes poked in it by life that there are only shreds of it left. But it's not negativity- it's really the absence of a comfortable delusion- cause bad stuff can happen to anyone at any time.
I guess the key is in making peace with that.
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