These are fractals.

Let’s be clear: By worrying myself with mental surveys of all the potential problems, I do not make these problems happen. That’s not quite the manner in which this storytelling fixes a certain reality into being. But when one spends so much energy stressing about hypotheticals rather than immersing one’s self in the here-and-now of a current experience, we can be sure that no matter how the circumstantial specifics play out, one will experience the experience of it in the most predictable way possible—as stress about what will happen next.

Did you catch the slippery, almost-too-obvious-to-be-insightful logic of it all? Running through the same story about what could happen essentially guarantees that, at any end-of-the-story, we will always be left in the same spot: worrying about the future. (Not sure I’d want to read that one over and over again.)

Forget about the potential disasters we may have avoided by adopting this tactic. What about the pleasant surprises and enlightening discoveries, which are hardly appreciated in their exquisite wholeness as we are always already angling to protect them from damage or disintegration, since another shoe might drop at any given future moment? Isn’t this what is meant by ‘fear of success’? That should we necessarily triumph in attaining a goal or goodie, the experience of it will be moderated or muted by concern for our ability to preserve it or build upon it?

Some sound advice from Astrobarry (via littleorphanammo)
Posted on July 5th, 2011
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Originally from littleorphanammo
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