Friday, June 17, 2011
Dave Mows Grass on Anxiety
It's a real bitch. Actually just a mild annoyance. For me at least. I don't know how others experience it. Mine is sub-clinical. In intensity at least. Maybe not in duration. Mine has no beginnings and no ends. It is continuous. It is a mild and continuous annoyance. Mostly I just worry. About everything. Actually that's not true. I don't worry about everything. I only worry about absurd hypotheticals. Like at work. They have this lift thing. It's anchored to the floor. The anchors did not look adequate to me. The engineer who designed the lift thing is extremely competent. He assured me the anchors were adequate. That was seven years ago. The lift thing has not fallen. The anchors have not loosened. The engineer was right. The anchors were adequate. The lift thing is not going to fall. Ever. I know this to be true. Still I worry. I worry that the lift thing will fall. It will not fall but I worry that it will fall. I worry that it will land on my legs. Below the knees. I worry that my legs will need to be amputated. Below the knees. Actually I don't worry about that. I worry that I won't be able to roll my kayak with both my legs amputated below the knees. Actually I don't worry about that. I worry that the outfitting which would allow me to roll my kayak with both legs amputated below the knees would not attach reliably to a polyethylene kayak. It's hard to glue things to polyethylene. I worry that I would miscalculate the placement of the seat. That I would miscalculate the trim adjustment needed to account for the missing weight of my lower legs. I worry that wave surfing would be difficult with improper trim. I worry that worrying about kayak outfitting difficulties following an accident involving a falling lift thing will cause me to loose sleep. I worry that loosing sleep will cause me to be sleepy at work. I worry that being sleepy at work will prevent me from reacting quickly when the lift thing begins to fall. I worry that I will not get out of the way. That it will land on my legs. I worry all the time. I worry about absurd hypotheticals. It is a mild and continuous annoyance. Anxiety is a mild and continuous annoyance.
11 comments:
Absolutely! Worry is related to the emotion of fear (see the June 18 Karg Brown blog post). You try to worry alla time (allah time?) but you have a lot of inconsistencies in your worried life. I have seen you in dogged pursuit of a goal. I have ovserved you participating in uncontrollable laughter. You are not faithful to worry. Perhaps you fear that worry will discover your lack of faithfulness and flee from you forever? Just remember, If people spent more time thinking about ducks, they'd spend less time thinking about other things.
Quack, Quack!
I really wouldn't worry about the lift, in fact, the press would prevent the lift from ever reaching you.....however....the press isn't bolted down and it weighs FAR more than the lift! I wonder it the weight of the lift is enough to tip the press???
Perhaps I am not yet faithful to worry, but it's worth striving for. I hope to one day transcend my physical form and become pure anxiety. Hi Rod.
Pete! Man, the press room has been so much less cynical without you in it. We all miss you terribly. Thanks for stopping by!
You couldn't be so lucky as to have the lift actually fall on YOU thus being able to collect all the associated benefits. And don't forget to worry about not having something to worry about.
You're a worrier king! And a writing one too...
Martijn
Hi Dave!
I love this! I'm a natural born worrier too. Now I'm worrying about that lift falling on your legs. Seriously. I've been struggling with anxiety a lot this past year. Only mine translates into fear such as fear of the grocery store, fear of crowds at the mall (and I work at the mall), fear of answering the phone (truly!), fear of the mailbox. So I guess fear is my number one problem.
love ya!
xxx
Pete, that a great point about the press.
Thanks guys! I am chicken, wrapped in phobia, inside an anxiety disorder; I have an irrational fear of everything.
I was talking last night with a friend's son, who's just qualified as a structural engineer. And he was talking about how part of the engineer's job is to design the building, bridge, tower, lift, whatever, with the minimum material it needs to withstand loads several times that which it will ever meet.
Yet sometimes, the resulting structure just LOOKS too skinny. People fear it's not strong enough. So they add unneccessary material, as an engineer's placebo, to make it look right.
I'm guilty of it too. I just hung some decorative planters on walls at work. I've got some high-tensile steel masonry screws that thread right into the stonework. They're strong. monstrously so, I'd happily trust my weight to one, 6mm diameter.
But they just didn't look confidence-inspiring, so I put the planters up on ht bolts more than twice the size. I just felt I trusted them more. You could probably hang a truck on them. Overkill for a 36" planter.
Shore that lift up with 4x2s, And feel reassured.
I was talking last night with a friend's son, who's just qualified as a structural engineer. And he was talking about how part of the engineer's job is to design the building, bridge, tower, lift, whatever, with the minimum material it needs to withstand loads several times that which it will ever meet.
Yet sometimes, the resulting structure just LOOKS too skinny. People fear it's not strong enough. So they add unneccessary material, as an engineer's placebo, to make it look right.
I'm guilty of it too. I just hung some decorative planters on walls at work. I've got some high-tensile steel masonry screws that thread right into the stonework. They're strong. monstrously so, I'd happily trust my weight to one, 6mm diameter.
But they just didn't look confidence-inspiring, so I put the planters up on ht bolts more than twice the size. I just felt I trusted them more. You could probably hang a truck on them. Overkill for a 36" planter.
Shore that lift up with 4x2s, And feel reassured.
Yeah, Soub, I know what you mean. I used to overdesign the shit out of things when I was younger. It was always obvious when I got done building whatever the thing was that it was stronger, heavier, and more expensive than it really needed to me. I remember a story about how Colin Chapman, the Lotus guy, would never fire someone for fabricating a race car component too light and having it break, but woe unto him who made a part heavier than it really needed to be!
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