Psychology — A "Freewrite" Meander — Is Worry Just a Useless Emotion?

I have noticed an increasing number of people doing something that's generally referred to as "freewriting."

I'm not entirely sure what it is, nor am I entirely sure whether there's a formal definition, but my impression is that it's more or less what we old farts used to call "free association" or "flow-of-consciousness" writing, which I sometimes would do as an exercise in creative writing courses.

Either way, I am calling the post a "freewrite" because it was inspired by a number of different posts I read earlier today, and I am in one of those "loose" states of mind where I am not sure I can stick to any one topic.

(And if you think it all looks very "neat and tidy" let me say from right here that I TYPED this from beginning to end without stopping — but I spent a good bit of time on formatting and grammar/spelling fixes, AFTER that!)

Worry, Worry, Worry....

I have always been a bit of a worrier.

Even when I was a little kid — allegedly before anyone "should" have to worry about anything — I worried about such things as being late for the bus, whether my bike would get a puncture, would my dad run out of gas and all manners of other stuff.

Some might say that I was innately pessimistic... although I'm not entirely sure whether pessimism can be an innate characteristic. But whenever "something" was in front of me, my initial thoughts were about all the things that could possibly go wrong...

As an adult, I continued in a mostly "worrying" frame of mind. 

In time, I learned that one way to release worrying was to simplify life. After all, the less you had on your plate, the less you had to worry about. There may be some real functional truth to that... except, I managed to turn it into full fledged AvPD (Avoidant Personality Disorder) which is basically fancy psychobabble for "pathologically reclusive." 

Oddly enough, it was the advent of the Internet — generally an isolation and recluse building device — that allowed me to escape out of the isolation of avoidance: I got to realize that I was not ALONE in my desire to avoid ALL THINGS in service of not having to worry.

So I came out of my shell a bit.

But Where Does it COME From?

Worry is a funny thing. I'm not sure where it comes from. Many would argue that it is "learned" and experientially based. I could certainly make a sound case for the idea that my tendency to worry is rooted in the fact that I have experienced an unusually high correlation between "attempting" things and "failing" at those same things. 

On the other hand, that mostly gives rise to the deeper question of whether or not I have a realistic perception of what a natural relationship between "attempting" and "failing" looks like. Maybe everyone fails as much as I did, and I am just internalizing the experience more.

That aside...

When I try to sit with "worry" on a deeper level, I realize that it is almost always related to my own inner insecurities that when something "bad" (a very arbitrary and ambiguous term) happens, I will not have the tools, resources and/or support to deal with it. 

When "bad" things have happened in the past, I have ended up homeless and sleeping on a bench (once) and living in my car (once). Of course, "bad" things have also happened where I didn't end up as a glorified indigent.

But does worrying HELP? Or is it just a useless emotion?

Discomfort With CHANGE...

I've heard it said that "worry is like taking out a mortgage TODAY on possible negative events in the FUTURE."

But what is it really that I — and many other people — "worry" about? 

The answer — perhaps — can be found by looking at the nature of our "comfort zones." 

My personal comfort zone is stability; sameness; reliability; knowing that tomorrow will be pretty much the same as today. Change, instability, "excitement;" constant variability; uncertainty... all make me feel anxious. I find them neither exciting, nor desirable, in the slightest.

Other people will have different comfort zones — some like adventure; some are drawn to constant activity; some are drawn to something completely different.

Worry, however, often has its roots in suddenly "being without" whatever makes us feel safe and comfortable.

I can look back and identify that the roots of my discomfort with change lies in the fact that until I was 14, we moved often and usually unpredictably, due to my dad's job. And — as a child — I felt helpless and like a cork bobbing randomly on the ocean; friends suddenly gone; familiar school suddenly gone; new language; new customs; new people. But that's a distant past.

The survival strategy of then is not applicable now.

Getting Back on Point: Worry

As "promised," I have wandered sideways for a bit.

One of my touchpoints this morning was a comment on someone's post, where they expressed "worry" at the crypto markets because they had come to depend somewhat on their Steemit rewards.

I understood, from the perspective that they were expressing worry over "uncertainty." We're sitting here on the Good Ship "S.S. Steemit" and we really have no idea what's going to happen. Even with the current market dips, cryptos could be down another 75% by the end of the month. Steemit could announce the end of rewards tomorrow.

Yesterday, I wrote about Not Having Expectations, which is how I live now. It's one of my coping mechanisms to contain worry. 

Getting back top posts today — on a somewhat tangential line of thought — I read a really interesting piece by @larrymorrison entitled "When Did You First Believe That You Couldn't Be Anything You Wanted To Be?" It's well worth a read... if you don't want to go there now, I resteemed it, so it's in my feed.

In a sense, Larry's post was a revisit to yet another "point about worry," and at the same time it also led to a (possibly minor) epiphany... which was wrapped in a bit of a conundrum:

I am 57 years old and I have actually never worried that I couldn't "be what I wanted to be." However, that understanding has always been contrasted with the (my perception) reality that "what I wanted to be" had little chance of ever being "enough." 

Figuratively speaking, I never doubted that I wanted to — and could — "tell stories" (my definition of writing, at age nine), but the knowing came with the stark realization that it was a choice that would — most likely — earn me the opportunity to live my life in a cardboard box, or "in a van, down by the river."

I don't like the idea of living in a van, down by the river. I've tried worse, and I know how easy it is to get from "here" to "there," so I worry.

Pity Party... or Reality Clarification?

"Hey... aren't you just having a giant pity party here?"

Well, no.

If that were the case, I'd stick to just wailing about misery... this is an exercise in exploring the convolutions of the human psyche. Understanding the why of getting into — and repeating — toxic patterns in life.

We all do it, albeit in very different ways. 

Understanding how and why we do what we do is often half the cure... and that's kind of the purpose of this freewrite. By extension, this post is also an invitation to anyone else who's struggling with some particular "thing" they do... without fully understanding why. Explore it! Find out where it comes from... and how it may serve or not serve you.

I'm not to worried about my worry (see what I did there!?!?) and pessimism. Besides, excessive optimism is turning out to not be all it's cracked up to be. Pessimists are actually often more rooted in reality, less likely to suffer from depression and typically are more successful "on average." So there's that.

And now I have run out of words... which (I believe) is when you're supposed to end a freewrite. So I will.

How about YOU? Are you generally a "worrier?" Do you think worry is a useless emotion? Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Have you ever tried "freewriting" as a therapeutic tool? Have you ever heard of it? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

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Created at 180615 21:12 PDT