Giving Up Anxiety
With the help of Pascal and floating space launchers
“Ride like something is chasing you.”
I’ve said these words to so many people over the years as a horse-riding instructor. Navigating a massive, complicated creature is a careful relationship of energy output. The human is a generator, pushing amps of power into an animal with the hope of creating forward motion.
But many of the beautiful actions humans love to see in a horse — a curved neck, prancing legs — are motions of an animal that is in a heightened state of alertness, a prey animal ready for flight.
I’ve spent a lot of my life living like a horse that is about to be eaten.
I figured there was an easier way to go about things, but my nervous system was so riveted on its conditioned way of experiencing the world, preparing for the next big disaster, I didn’t know where to start. Plus, it felt like my constant vigilance was somehow keeping the demons at bay. If I let my guard drop, anything could happen.
I’m a big fan of Pascal’s Wager when it comes to life experimentation. In its original form, this 17th-century philosophical argument focuses on belief in God as a bet that humans choose to either take or dismiss. If one goes about their actions with a purpose that is in line with God existing…
