When you fret about the future, you’re demanding reassurance, yet this is something it can never give you
There’s a good chance that you’re worried, right now, about what the future holds. I raise this in the context of next week’s election and Brexit, of course, but that situation’s hardly unique: many of us are always worried about what the future holds, in some domain – and still would be even if politics suddenly started going our way. Which makes this as good a time as any to recall what a strange emotion worry is. No matter how much badness is in store for you, once you’ve taken whatever precautions you can, worry is largely useless. In prehistory, when threats were immediate and physical, a surge of anxiety could motivate evasive action. But that’s not true of most modern worries, whether they’re political, environmental, related to your job, your relationship or your kids; instead, the anxiety just hangs around and feeds on itself. Honestly, it might be preferable just to have to outrun a sabre-toothed tiger every few weeks.
It’s interesting to consider the asymmetry in our feelings about the future versus the past. Looking ahead, life’s unpredictability maddens us, and we worry because we feel, if subconsciously, that doing so will help bring the future under our control. (Or we act hyper-cautiously, also in hopes of controlling the future: “Dad suggests arriving at airport 14 hours early,” reads an Onion headline, apparently inspired by my childhood.) Yet, looking backwards – and I know I risk sounding like I’ve been consuming substances derived from the leaf of the cannabis plant here – isn’t it odd that we’re untroubled by the zigzagging path of coincidence and unpredictability that brought us to this point?
Continue reading...
0 comments :
Post a Comment