Mark Twain captured the essence of anxiety in a single thought: “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.” That’s insightful thinking on Twain’s part, right?
I wish every anxious person would read that sentence. But, alas, Twain’s thought is a rational assessment of why he sometimes must have suffered from anxiety. Reason, he must have reasoned, can explain why he was anxious. But reasoning works differently during anxious times. To the anxious, there appear to be “reasons” for the troubled mental state. However sound those reasons seem to the anxious, they are to outsiders mere rationalizations based on a belief in the inevitability of “what ifs.” Those who are anxious and those who are not derive their sense of reason differently. The anxious derive it from hasty conclusions. Those not anxious derive it from logic. It seems that looking at the world “reasonably” is like looking through windows with varying transparency, maybe even like looking through stained glass windows.
Experience, as Twain implies, is meaningless for those that suffer from anxiety. That “nothing happened” as they predicted in most previous episodes of worry means little. If there’s an analog to be had, it lies in the anxious living in a many-worlds universe. The reality they know doesn’t preclude the existence of other realities that can interrupt their lives. In a many-worlds interpretation of reality, one never knows when dimensions will cross and alternate realities will encompass the present, nay, become the present.
Of course, we might all say anxiety is natural. There are some scary events and entities awaiting all of us, not the least of which is death. From tigers, lions, and monsters under beds and in closets to concerns that envelop adults, almost everyone, if not everyone, is given to moments of irrational jitters. In life the things of life happen, not the least of which is change: The circumstances of Now, however pleasant and happy, will change. Living an eternal High can be interrupted by a pulled hamstring, a dental cavity, or a lost set of keys.
As biochemical organisms, we’re all prone to some molecular influences, so anxiety can occur with a rush of chemicals through our brains. No doubt, there are people whose anxiety is a manifestation of a physical process that merges with the psychological in a perfect feed back loop. For such people, chemicals provide a mitigating therapy. As conscious biochemical organisms living highly complex lives in an even more complex world, mere chemistry isn’t always a complete therapy, and sometimes isn’t necessary at all.
When anxiety is driven by the mind and not the brain, there might be another kind of therapy to reduce anxiety: Reading that sentence by Mark Twain repeatedly until its message becomes a way of life, of an anxiety-free life—well, except for that death thing.
I wish every anxious person would read that sentence. But, alas, Twain’s thought is a rational assessment of why he sometimes must have suffered from anxiety. Reason, he must have reasoned, can explain why he was anxious. But reasoning works differently during anxious times. To the anxious, there appear to be “reasons” for the troubled mental state. However sound those reasons seem to the anxious, they are to outsiders mere rationalizations based on a belief in the inevitability of “what ifs.” Those who are anxious and those who are not derive their sense of reason differently. The anxious derive it from hasty conclusions. Those not anxious derive it from logic. It seems that looking at the world “reasonably” is like looking through windows with varying transparency, maybe even like looking through stained glass windows.
Experience, as Twain implies, is meaningless for those that suffer from anxiety. That “nothing happened” as they predicted in most previous episodes of worry means little. If there’s an analog to be had, it lies in the anxious living in a many-worlds universe. The reality they know doesn’t preclude the existence of other realities that can interrupt their lives. In a many-worlds interpretation of reality, one never knows when dimensions will cross and alternate realities will encompass the present, nay, become the present.
Of course, we might all say anxiety is natural. There are some scary events and entities awaiting all of us, not the least of which is death. From tigers, lions, and monsters under beds and in closets to concerns that envelop adults, almost everyone, if not everyone, is given to moments of irrational jitters. In life the things of life happen, not the least of which is change: The circumstances of Now, however pleasant and happy, will change. Living an eternal High can be interrupted by a pulled hamstring, a dental cavity, or a lost set of keys.
As biochemical organisms, we’re all prone to some molecular influences, so anxiety can occur with a rush of chemicals through our brains. No doubt, there are people whose anxiety is a manifestation of a physical process that merges with the psychological in a perfect feed back loop. For such people, chemicals provide a mitigating therapy. As conscious biochemical organisms living highly complex lives in an even more complex world, mere chemistry isn’t always a complete therapy, and sometimes isn’t necessary at all.
When anxiety is driven by the mind and not the brain, there might be another kind of therapy to reduce anxiety: Reading that sentence by Mark Twain repeatedly until its message becomes a way of life, of an anxiety-free life—well, except for that death thing.
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