Panic

I have problems with anxiety. If it lasts for a while, I will eventually notice. I've been a little out of touch with my body for a while, so I don't always notice right off.

And noticing right off? That is Panic. For me

I'm pretty sure panic is one of the wordless, unconscious tools of the Human Spirit (if you're feeling poetic. Or of properly functioning flesh and blood, if you are not).

And Panic is there for me, man. He knows danger far better than I do, because the world is safer than it has ever been before, in all the ages of man before agriculture and animal husbandry. And he has not caught on to the changes.

If hunger doesn't get you up and looking for something to eat? Panic will up the ante.

Leaving a warm, well-lit place packed with friendly people? To go out alone into the cold, dark night? What kind of an idiot are you? (This bit me in the ass this week, and came as quite a shock, I can tell you.)

Afraid of the dark? What you can't see, you can't predict. And our predictive powers, friends, are totally the frenemy.

They help our reaction times. If we are primed for the right thing. The danger of our predictive powers is "the story," an idea I plucked from Byron Katie, whom I adore. She gives out the basic framework of her philosophy and methods on her website, or at least she used to. I've only read a chapter or two of a couple of her books, to be completely honest, because she comes off as a little batty, and I am extremely wary of that. But she won't mind my saying so, I am sure, because she divides the world into three areas of business. I have my business. There's other stuff that is somebody else's business. And there is God's business.

I am totally trying to take care of my business, and let the other kinds slide.

There are still plenty of dangers. No doubt about it. But my best friend, my own set of instincts and tendencies? Is also my frenemy. Because he keeps crying wolf.