Stop Fearing the Future, A Brain Hack
I don’t know about you, but I think our future looks bleak.
The Black Dog of worry for the future wants to sit on my chest daily. Pressing down on me, his heavy mass prevents me from moving forward. To keep getting up in the morning, I have to practice a brain hack. This hack is underpinned by two things: my belief in chaos and humanity. It’s reinforced with a heavy helping of “what have I got to lose”.
To be clear, I believe in science. I trust scientists and their graphs of our impending doom. I believe in the facts that underlie the models of a bleak future. So, it’s not ignorance that keeps me going.
Scientists predict outcomes with the best information available, but ultimately the future is uncertain because of chaos. Chaos holds infinite possibilities and disrupts predictive models. It holds the spectrum of both good and bad outcomes, so the future could be wonderful instead of as horrible as predicted. For me, chaos is mathematical hope.
Regarding humanity, I specifically believe in the people who seem to ignite when the darkness encroaches. I believe that the darkness inflames the gas mantle of the good and the light created drives evil back to its dark corners. I believe that when a closed system is stressed in one direction, it has no choice but to rebalance itself to equilibrium. There are humans who are called to do good, who exist (seemingly) to be a counterpoint to the darkness.
I believe that people like this exist because I’ve been fortunate enough to meet many of them. I’ve been an emotional mess in my life. PTSD grips me and throws me back to dark times. In this darkness, strangers have stepped forward to help me. Not my family, not my well meaning friends, not my primary care physician, or any other person who has a stake in my outcome. No, it’s been the complete strangers who have floated in, helped my stabilize, and then floated away again.
So when I don’t want to go boldly into the dark future, I remember that I’m facing the wrong way. I’m looking in the wrong direction. I need to incorporate the possibility of good along with the bad. In my mind, I visualize seeing a bleak future. This is the direction I’m facing. In my mind, I turn myself around 180 degrees to face the other side of the Truth. That the outcome is unknown and on one side its bleak and on the other side it’s wonderful. I draw as clear a picture as I can of the hopefulness, adding details of the things I want to happen. It’s even better when I can add a song to the landscape and imagine smells that are there. The more I engage with the landscape of good and the more details I can add, the more real it feels.
Choosing to redirect is imperative. The dark future may happen, it’s true. If it’s not here yet, why experience it? If my present moment is good then I’m ruining it by preemptively living in a dark future. If suffering is coming, I’m going to be happy now so that my time spent in the suffering box is as limited as possible. It seems to be the only way to keep moving along smartly.
