It’s funny how most of our fears are not the fears we think they are when we think them.
Well, I can only really speak for myself, but I know it is reported to be a wider human proclivity.
I have been noticing lately, when I get a scary thought, the vague fear that encroaches seems on the surface to be about one thing, but if I stay with it, explore it, interrogate it, it turns out to be something altogether different. Something altogether stupider.
For instance, am I scared that my life will never get any better because I dislike my current life? Or is it actually that, even though I love my life, I’m scared that if it isn’t, at all times, actively and immediately getting better in demonstrable ways, it’ll inexplicably start getting worse, and then other people will blame me for not having a good life? Yeah, it’s the second one. The stupider one.
It’s worth questioning these things, because when you see the stupid in broad daylight, it makes it much less appealing to hold onto.