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I frankly feel kinda great in a crisis. The more serious, the better. All the dumbest parts of my brain shut down and I do what has to be done. Squeamishness, f

I frankly feel kinda great in a crisis. The more serious, the better. All the dumbest parts of my brain shut down and I do what has to be done. Squeamishness, fear, anxiety, second-guessing, rumination—all shoved in a closet and the door slammed. Gotta be an acute crisis I can do something about, though. "Climate change" or whatever doesn't trigger that state. If not for being pretty happy with being alive and having a body that's not broken and logically knowing how fast those things can change, I'd probably be really into extreme sports.

bowtie109 4y ago
Does climate change cause you anxiety? I feel the helplessness of it also leads to feelings of hopelessness (sadnees cynical).
- corrral 4y ago
  Almost everything in the news is either gonna trigger anxiety or nothing. Outrage, maybe. That's about it. Farther away from local news, the more true that is. Luckily, keeping up with that stuff day-to-day or even week-to-week is pretty pointless, so easy to avoid. The knowledge of all those problems just goes on the pile of shit that I can't possibly deal with, so just have to try not to think about, along with things like existential dread, the fact that my living the way I do (so, like a normal developed-world person) is probably indirectly causing misery for someone somewhere (The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is, like much good speculative fiction, not about a fictional place but rather our current world), my hunch that cosmic horror probably comes about as close to capturing the nature of our existence and place in the universe as anything does (if only metaphorically), all that and the rest of the unhelpful crap that's probably true and real but also not especially actionable short of "kill yourself, or else devote yourself body and soul monk-/batman-like to some cause all the time every day, probably to no real effect except personal satisfaction".
  - soco 4y ago
    That's exactly the point of those news: to trigger the viewer. That's all they care about. Now that we pile up on those anxieties or whatever, not the news channel's problem.
otikik 4y ago
Climate Change doesn’t do it … yet. It’s starting to look very imminent in several parts of the world.
Llamamoe 4y ago
In a way, isn't that exactly what evolution prepared us for, as opposed to a life of overabundance afforded by work with no personal meaning? Perhaps we're simply missing having and being able to overcome pressing challenges as much as we're missing physical activity, nights without light pollution, or contact with nature?
Damogran6 4y ago
This resonates. I'm in a highly regulated industry and nothing makes my happier than a Sev 1 emergency where I can push all the mind numbing process to the side and actually FIX shit. Otherwise it's process, and review boards, and iterating on the change til someone is happy about some arbitrary documentation issue.
jamal-kumar 4y ago
Isn't a great part of the occidental world going through 40°C heat waves right now? That doesn't concern you?
- corrral 4y ago
  On the one hand, yeah, sure, on the other, that concern does nothing but hurt me. It's entirely pointless. You don't need to maintain a constant state of concern/anxiety to remember to work toward solutions to those sorts of things when possible. And anyway, I only wrote that those kinds of things don't trigger that pleasant crisis-flow-state for me, not that I'm not worried about them.
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
I too like when crises time hits, when I have something I need to act upon and deal with. And I think that's a lot of it - WW2 people could do their part for the war effort, their enemy had a face, they could fight it, they could win. You can understand this at the simplest levels, everyone understands fighting. I can't fight climate change, I can't fight COVID. I'm powerless against the specter of fascism. We have all these anxieties about what's happening, but no way we can do better. Frustrations and anger pile up but there's no catharsis. A lot of the time embracing the darkness in media is cathartic.
eunoia 4y ago
I have a very similar crisis reaction. Acute crisis bring out the best in me. Unfortunately conversely, long slow simmering ones without agency break me over time. Anectdote: I was very into “extreme” sports as a kid and into adulthood. I eventually took up skydiving and had quite a bit of fun with it. Met a lot of old timers with a lot of jumps under their belt. An observation really struck me talking to them: the people at the top of “extreme” sports are not really adrenaline junkies, but control freaks.
- jareklupinski 4y ago
  > the people at the top of “extreme” sports are not really adrenaline junkies, but control freaks. survivor's bias? :P
  - eunoia 4y ago
    Quite possibly. Skydiver culture calls for an in-depth, postmortem analysis on basically any incident. So theoretically it’s more than just dumb luck. But that’s exactly what a control freak would say ;)
MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
The crisis flow state as you call it is great every once in a while but it's not sustainable long term.
flippinburgers 4y ago
I never really realized that I react in a similar way until you put it into words.
scythe 4y ago
A crisis is acute and inherently short-term. But despite mountains of marketing meant to make it a series of deadlines and checkpoints, climate change is a fundamentally continuous, long-term problem that grows a little more every day. The Ukraine situation by contrast had the contours of a crisis, and so did COVID-19 in the beginning. And in both cases we in the "developed" world watched our leaders squabble and foible and generally reveal their total unpreparedness. I can see how that's depressing.
medvezhenok 4y ago
If you're interested in reading more about this I highly recommend the book "Tribe" by Sebastian Junger - it goes into exactly what you say - why people sometimes feel better in a time of crisis. The main reason is the temporary flattening of social hierarchies and true meritocracy where you are more valued for your skills than for your position in society. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/144344958X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/144344958X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

bowtie109 4y ago

Does climate change cause you anxiety? I feel the helplessness of it also leads to feelings of hopelessness (sadnees cynical).

corrral 4y ago
Almost everything in the news is either gonna trigger anxiety or nothing. Outrage, maybe. That's about it. Farther away from local news, the more true that is. Luckily, keeping up with that stuff day-to-day or even week-to-week is pretty pointless, so easy to avoid. The knowledge of all those problems just goes on the pile of shit that I can't possibly deal with, so just have to try not to think about, along with things like existential dread, the fact that my living the way I do (so, like a normal developed-world person) is probably indirectly causing misery for someone somewhere (The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is, like much good speculative fiction, not about a fictional place but rather our current world), my hunch that cosmic horror probably comes about as close to capturing the nature of our existence and place in the universe as anything does (if only metaphorically), all that and the rest of the unhelpful crap that's probably true and real but also not especially actionable short of "kill yourself, or else devote yourself body and soul monk-/batman-like to some cause all the time every day, probably to no real effect except personal satisfaction".
- soco 4y ago
  That's exactly the point of those news: to trigger the viewer. That's all they care about. Now that we pile up on those anxieties or whatever, not the news channel's problem.

otikik 4y ago

Climate Change doesn’t do it … yet. It’s starting to look very imminent in several parts of the world.

Llamamoe 4y ago

In a way, isn't that exactly what evolution prepared us for, as opposed to a life of overabundance afforded by work with no personal meaning? Perhaps we're simply missing having and being able to overcome pressing challenges as much as we're missing physical activity, nights without light pollution, or contact with nature?

Damogran6 4y ago

This resonates. I'm in a highly regulated industry and nothing makes my happier than a Sev 1 emergency where I can push all the mind numbing process to the side and actually FIX shit. Otherwise it's process, and review boards, and iterating on the change til someone is happy about some arbitrary documentation issue.

jamal-kumar 4y ago

Isn't a great part of the occidental world going through 40°C heat waves right now? That doesn't concern you?

corrral 4y ago
On the one hand, yeah, sure, on the other, that concern does nothing but hurt me. It's entirely pointless. You don't need to maintain a constant state of concern/anxiety to remember to work toward solutions to those sorts of things when possible. And anyway, I only wrote that those kinds of things don't trigger that pleasant crisis-flow-state for me, not that I'm not worried about them.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

I too like when crises time hits, when I have something I need to act upon and deal with. And I think that's a lot of it - WW2 people could do their part for the war effort, their enemy had a face, they could fight it, they could win. You can understand this at the simplest levels, everyone understands fighting. I can't fight climate change, I can't fight COVID. I'm powerless against the specter of fascism. We have all these anxieties about what's happening, but no way we can do better. Frustrations and anger pile up but there's no catharsis. A lot of the time embracing the darkness in media is cathartic.

eunoia 4y ago

I have a very similar crisis reaction. Acute crisis bring out the best in me. Unfortunately conversely, long slow simmering ones without agency break me over time. Anectdote: I was very into “extreme” sports as a kid and into adulthood. I eventually took up skydiving and had quite a bit of fun with it. Met a lot of old timers with a lot of jumps under their belt. An observation really struck me talking to them: the people at the top of “extreme” sports are not really adrenaline junkies, but control freaks.

jareklupinski 4y ago
> the people at the top of “extreme” sports are not really adrenaline junkies, but control freaks. survivor's bias? :P
- eunoia 4y ago
  Quite possibly. Skydiver culture calls for an in-depth, postmortem analysis on basically any incident. So theoretically it’s more than just dumb luck. But that’s exactly what a control freak would say ;)

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago

The crisis flow state as you call it is great every once in a while but it's not sustainable long term.

flippinburgers 4y ago

I never really realized that I react in a similar way until you put it into words.

scythe 4y ago

A crisis is acute and inherently short-term. But despite mountains of marketing meant to make it a series of deadlines and checkpoints, climate change is a fundamentally continuous, long-term problem that grows a little more every day. The Ukraine situation by contrast had the contours of a crisis, and so did COVID-19 in the beginning. And in both cases we in the "developed" world watched our leaders squabble and foible and generally reveal their total unpreparedness. I can see how that's depressing.

medvezhenok 4y ago

If you're interested in reading more about this I highly recommend the book "Tribe" by Sebastian Junger - it goes into exactly what you say - why people sometimes feel better in a time of crisis. The main reason is the temporary flattening of social hierarchies and true meritocracy where you are more valued for your skills than for your position in society. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/144344958X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/144344958X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...