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Maybe you know this line "Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration." It's from the novel Dune, right at the beginning. To me it always held a big truth that fear changes the way our mind works in drastic ways.

There are theories that say our brain consists of a more "reptile" part that is mostly fight or flight, a "mammal" part with emotions, and a part that enables rational thought. But it's all still there and when you're in fight or flight mode, the reptile part takes over.

This is very real, leading to cognitive distortions where we tend to overemphasize negative experiences or predictions. Fear takes over and focusses our thought. We no longer think about probabilities, but instead think that "it could happen."

These days I feel like social media is more and more targetting those reptile parts. People are seeking our attention and they found the mechanism that is very hard to resist. You know, people talking about the end of the world, awful people doing stuff and getting away with it..

I have nothing against a bit of drama, but these days I feel like it is bleeding over into my own life and affecting how I can deal with it, especially since winter is around and I'm in home office for 2.5 years now.