ABSTRACT
The author remembers a friend who grew up a loser. He lived at home with his parents until he was over thirty, and went back and forth to the psychology ward. Why was he so anxious? It wasn’t until one day, after the police paid a visit, that it became apparent he stayed home to keep an eye on his wife-beater of a father. Would a distraction have helped him? Would acceptance? A psychedelic trip to the moon? Enlightenment? The author concludes that the anxiety was not inside his friend, but in the situation in which he found himself. This is true of humanity's anxiety problems in general. Tackling the problem would involve illuminating a catastrophe that exists not in the future, but right here and now: our modern aversion to risk.
