Functions of Extreme Worry and Anxiety in Modern Society

These days most anybody is or knows someone who is very on edge, suffers from Professionally Identified Anxiety Disorder, or suffers from bouts of Extreme Worry (a disorder which includes subsets like '90's style extreme' and 'extremely incapacitating'). I see this more and more often. While I am fortunate enough to simply be extremely paralyzed by it, I realize looking around in my life that plenty of people seem to function nominally well under such pressures. A minority of acquaintances have more serious issues and the effects aren't always immediately apparent, but when I stop and think about it I can see hints of avoidant behavior and other quirks. I used to always write them off as high-strung but I've come to a number of realizations in the past year especially.

I mean I've gone long stretches without worrying too much, or with only minor worries blown out of proportion. Every now and then something relatively important will fill me with a sense of dread that cannot be banished. I refer to those most often as moments of clarity. I had a few such moments when I lost the ability to write effectively for this blog, and killed it, and knew that I blew it, and didn't have the energy or drive to replace it with a better one. I've had such moments about about personal relationships, and they've have kept me from the blessed realm of sleep. I regularly get the sensation of growing dread when I think of my life. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one, and I've seen people with much less fucked-up lives than mine worry outrageously.

I've seen lots of unhappy faces on the streets. I assume most of them are facing some kind of anxiety. I can't blame them. There seem to be about a million things to worry about. There are always hundreds of things going on. You're missing out. You're probably sick with something. There are new illnesses every day. The planet is not dying. The world is under attack by fanatics who think the planet is dying and want to ruin your standard of living because they're hippies. People are out to get you. Lies and murder rule the streets, maybe even the world. You're going to lose your job. You're unemployed already and nobody will ever hire you. You'll never be in love again. The love you're in is falling apart. You're not in love, of course, you're far too rational for that. You're over-thinking things. You're not living your dream. Someone somewhere is stealing your dreams from you. You're insufficient for your dreams. Your dreams are killing you.

The government and big business are interested in observing everything you do. The neighbor, a surveillance technician, or some random passerby figured out your router's password. They probably know exactly the sort of weird shit you looked up while drunk last Wednesday night. The rest of us just guessed  If that isn't enough there are a million ways to find out how everyone other than you is living a really cool and fulfilling life with all sorts of positive life events and smiles and kisses and whatnot. The second you start automatically comparing yourself to them you've sort of lost the battle already. The idea of the war is a little too scary to casually engage. Something to think or worry about.

News does not fill you with much hope. The internet is full of noxious and annoying things. Your friends are drifting away into the aether. Maybe you're the one drifting away. In any case all of this anxiety and worry are perfect drivers for a healthy appetite for distraction. Oh you can drink the worry away but that's unhealthy and socially unacceptable. But you can also drown it by consuming entertainment products, developing obsessions with various franchises and celebrities. You can shop it out. You can buy a pet. Another pet. You can buy an identity. A new identity when you want it. You can make the getting of things the main buttress of the wall separating you and anxiety, or you can alter your brain chemistry legally or illegally; permanently or temporarily. Mental illness is a huge and growing market with constantly expanding possibilities. The ground floor happened a long time ago but there's still money to be made. Turns out anxiety is a renewable resource. If stress and anxiety could generate some form of reliable energy we'd all be trading in serial heart attacks, sleepless weeks and mental breakdowns for thousands of dollars.

In the face of such suffering and nonsense as exist on earth it is nearly impossible to not worry at times. Worry is central. Worry is the new religion. People worry about worrying. People are anxious about anxiety. People are freaking out about anything and everything. Anyone will point to anything as a cause and anything as a cure. People will find cures unconsciously. Myself I typically talk myself out of it by remembering the wisdom of bygone commentators on the human condition (there are myriad, with perspectives from across the world and the ages). All of it conspires to place someone in a self-made prison where the only pass-time is thinking about being worried, being worried about why the worry occurs, and speculating about the sources of the worst of it.

The worst part may be how all the worry and anxiety don't just make people unhappy, they actively separate people from happiness, and reduce their ability to find happiness or fulfillment, or even think they are capable of anything. It ruins lives and even the fear of it seems to have ruined lives, and continues to. Anxieties have real functions (keeping important concerns on our minds, self-preservation, awareness of problems) but many of these have become dysfunctions thanks to the super-helpful modern world and its habit of over-exposing you to everything when all you really need is a quiet week or a few minutes (or hours, or days even) of calm detachment. Investing in an online identity can only bring ruinous habits to the psyche... none of it is real, but it matters so much to people in vulnerable states (see: teenage suicides prompted by the internet).

So while I could scoff and hem and haw about the modern anxiety crisis, I actually sympathize with it. It is definitely being exploited by pharmaceutical companies (I mean they have the atomic bombs of anxiety-defeating chemicals which are terrible for long term use but five to ten times as efficacious as marijuana or ethanol), and by society at large (preying on insecurity for profit and control), and probably by political systems as well (but this is old news). Well I don't have any answers... the functions of stress and anxiety and extreme worry are myriad – heed this well: successful people make it work for them instead of letting it work against them.