Statistically speaking, the man and his wife are far more likely to shoot each other than to shoot some criminal, but his anxiety wasn’t caused by fear of death…his anxiety is caused by fear of people, and by the belief that he cannot predict violence. Anxiety, unlike real fear, is always caused by uncertainty. It is caused, ultimately, by predictions on which you have little confidence. Anxiety is reduced by improving your predictions, thus increasing your certainty.
The real danger lies in believing your imagined demons and the forces working against you:
When we assume the imagined outcome is a sure thing, we are in conflict…Proust: “Only that which is absent can be imagined.” In other words, what you imagine-just like what you fear-is not happeningBut for Republicans, the vandals, union thugs, chaos at the Capitol, death threats and destruction of our country are the imagined reality they fear that…is not happening.
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