The world has always been an anxious place. The events of the past three years, coupled with real-time communications, have escalated things beyond the breaking point.
Sure, it’s normal to deal with scenarios that inspire uncertainty. But when it becomes chronic, very few of us can discern which dangers are real and which are only perceived.
We’re living within a collective anxiety disorder that transcends the artificial barriers we like to imagine are carved in stone. Do you know those memes about having to prepare for an hour just to make a phone call? They wouldn’t exist so widely if there wasn’t a universality to them.
Our culture markets fear and we line up — and trample others — like it’s a flat-screen TV on Black Friday. What we fear might be a mythical virus or a digital ID. It could be deplorables that make us anxious; it could be wokesters.
The causes (real and imagined) differ. The results do not.
To keep things very simple, here’s basically what happens inside the minds of frightened, anxious humans regardless of their political stances:
We perceive fear in a dysfunctional way
Our memories are stored in such a manner as to perpetuate more dread
Our capacity for logical, rational thinking is overwhelmed by chronic anxiety
Stress hormones relentlessly course through our bloodstream
We’re stuck in fight-or-flight mode and lose the ability to make well-informed decisions
Within our hive minds, we do our particular versions of black pilling. We doom scroll, build up hatred for the “other,” and feed the anxiety disorder. The beliefs differ. The pain does not.
If you were to recognize that you share such experiences with virtually everyone around you, would it inspire empathy, patience, and understanding?
Asking for a friend.
More to consider:
A sense of control mitigates fear. I would like to see all of our reformers include small action steps in every one of their complaints. There is a good opportunity on May 20 with 150 We are Ready events scheduled around the world: https://www.weareready.world/locations/. These are being organized by the Global Walkout organization that is helping people build communities to resist globalism.
Small action steps can also include intentionality in purchases and affiliations. The Bud Light protest was a good example of that. I just ended a 35 year relationship with American Express when I discovered their wokeism in New York and their overall woke pedigree. I went with a new conservative card, Coign, that is far from perfect but better than Amex, which is a disaster.