Everything will come true -- eventually
If you startle a cat it will sink towards the ground, look rapidly around itself, sinews hard and ready for the pending fight or flight that is to come. If the startling noise was something being dropped or a loud vehicle on the street, the cat will realize this, cease the adrenalin pumping, and go on about its business as though nothing is amiss. In fact, it can easily plop down and go to sleep.
We humans can’t seem to master that. We too have the fight-or-flight reaction but when something startles us or seems to be a threat, it takes us a while to regain our composure. Heart is often pounding for a long while after, and feelings of nausea or need for a bathroom don’t pass in a flash. If such horrific threats become chronic, such as for a combat soldier under fire for days or weeks, sometimes the residuals never pass, and we are left with the situation that used to, in times past, be known as shell-shock – later it became war-nerves and finally, battle fatigue.
They say that World War Two’s most highly decorated soldier, Audie Murphy, never really did get past it. He suffered from an elevated pulse rate, verging on tachycardia for most of his life, and was plagued with insomnia and nightmares on an ongoing basis. My grandfather, who was in the trenches in World War One continued to have nightmares until his dying day, which wasn’t until 1958. Forty years of reliving the horrors he’d experienced.
You see, that’s where the cat is better off than we are. The cat cannot relive bad situations, and especially, it cannot intellectualize what happened. Therefore, it can’t worry.
Human beings worry. We worry about everything. We worry about our health and our wealth (or lack thereof), we worry about our mortality, we worry about our marriages and our children, we worry when there isn’t really much to worry about. If we are obsessive in our worrying we can lapse into bad habits like pills or booze to take us temporarily away. We can seek relief through gambling or illicit sexual encounters. Or we can just plain fret.
I’ve often wondered whether people who win big on the lottery, or Bill Gates, or Rupert Murdoch, or Richard Branson, all of whom have more money than a lot of notable countries in the world, worry. What can they worry about? They can never lose all their money. Even McCartney, despite his fight with horrible and grasping ‘Mucca’ doesn’t need to worry about having to resort to tinned beans.
Yet, money is only one worry. There are still the matters of health, mortality, children, and so forth.
Do, I write this because I’m especially worried about something? No, actually I’m not. It all came about because some kid out on the street was making a lot of noise, and the cat crouched in his flight-or-fight pose.
Other than that, I only worry about the same stuff everybody else does – everything.
We humans can’t seem to master that. We too have the fight-or-flight reaction but when something startles us or seems to be a threat, it takes us a while to regain our composure. Heart is often pounding for a long while after, and feelings of nausea or need for a bathroom don’t pass in a flash. If such horrific threats become chronic, such as for a combat soldier under fire for days or weeks, sometimes the residuals never pass, and we are left with the situation that used to, in times past, be known as shell-shock – later it became war-nerves and finally, battle fatigue.
They say that World War Two’s most highly decorated soldier, Audie Murphy, never really did get past it. He suffered from an elevated pulse rate, verging on tachycardia for most of his life, and was plagued with insomnia and nightmares on an ongoing basis. My grandfather, who was in the trenches in World War One continued to have nightmares until his dying day, which wasn’t until 1958. Forty years of reliving the horrors he’d experienced.
You see, that’s where the cat is better off than we are. The cat cannot relive bad situations, and especially, it cannot intellectualize what happened. Therefore, it can’t worry.
Human beings worry. We worry about everything. We worry about our health and our wealth (or lack thereof), we worry about our mortality, we worry about our marriages and our children, we worry when there isn’t really much to worry about. If we are obsessive in our worrying we can lapse into bad habits like pills or booze to take us temporarily away. We can seek relief through gambling or illicit sexual encounters. Or we can just plain fret.
I’ve often wondered whether people who win big on the lottery, or Bill Gates, or Rupert Murdoch, or Richard Branson, all of whom have more money than a lot of notable countries in the world, worry. What can they worry about? They can never lose all their money. Even McCartney, despite his fight with horrible and grasping ‘Mucca’ doesn’t need to worry about having to resort to tinned beans.
Yet, money is only one worry. There are still the matters of health, mortality, children, and so forth.
Do, I write this because I’m especially worried about something? No, actually I’m not. It all came about because some kid out on the street was making a lot of noise, and the cat crouched in his flight-or-fight pose.
Other than that, I only worry about the same stuff everybody else does – everything.
Labels: Worryworryworryworry
posted by Ian Lidster at
3:07 PM
8 Comments:
I've read that people who win the lottery have an initial boost in happiness, then returnoto their baseline level of happiness. SO those who are miserable wretches prior to getting the big payout, remain iserable wretches.
Also, the other difference between us and cats is that the sympathetic nervous system arousal that occurs is designe dot help us go on living. It's not so effective when the trigger is some chronic state or some othe rsituation you cannot flee or fight off (the state of the economy, say, or an upcoming date).
We are a society that's geared to the worst possible disease that is the foundation for most other diseases - chronic worry. No one takes time anymore to slow down and smell the roses and enjoy the moment at hand.
'God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.'
There's a whole lifetime of learning to be had in these few not so simple lines yet few understand the echoing implications if this was followed in even half of their daily lives. Thought-provoking post Ian.
Um..have you seen the title of my blog? Anxious Moments? Yup..that's me. Worrywart.
The other night I was up half the night with that pit in the stomach feeling over the frames I had purchased for a promotional art campaign for my company.
Truly. Frames. My boss laughed for 15 minutes when I told her the next day.
At least she got me to stop worrying about that. Although I did not reach cat cool stage.
Ive got better at not worrying as i have got older.
Thankfully!!
ptsd... so much fun, too
I was almost killed in a car accident, when hit by a huge truck. Our children were in the back of the car- pre seatbelt days. They were unharmed, but were taken away, & I didnt know where they were. I relived that accident for years, & the fear that my children had been killed returned over & over again. Probably made me rather an over protective mother.
The human condition is not always a healthy one!!
I have a highly developed "startle reflex." I'm sure it's because I never felt safe as a child, and over many years I was conditioned to pump vast amounts of adrenalin.
PTSD is the gift that keeps on giving. I am hoping to come back in my next life as a cat, preferably MY cat.
i am a very good worrier indeed. i think if we lost our memories of stressful situations we wouldn't worry so much. very good post to make one ponder.
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