A Year of Strange Things 1
I felt the feverish September heat, and the noon sunshine vigorously pummeled my head. The leaves were getting dirty yellow and dry, and the street before me basked in gasoline exhaust. Buses pulled over, waiting until the line of passengers clumsily squeezed through the front door, and then unhurriedly departed, filling the air with diesel farts. I fantasized that it probably looked like an ocean port in miniature, with those cargo ships put on fast forward. The endless sequence of arriving and departing buses partly blocked the street and cab drivers desperately tried to get through this bottleneck, furiously honking and making impossible turns from the police car chase movies. The screeching of tires was earsplitting and, generally, annoying. My imagination switched on again, and I compared the buses to elephants; they were somewhat similar in how few fucks they gave. I observed people busily scuttling around the dense line of bus stops. They still had in them a bit of summer nonchalance, wearing beach style clothes that revealed a magnificent suntan they got somewhere where there were less of gasoline exhaust and more ocean and palms, but their faces already took that tormented expressions of tired office workers, concerned about a million insignificant things at once. The vacation season was over.
The problem is that if something seems too easy it's usually not the best thing, or our intuition tricks us into believing it, and I was in the process of the vigorous correspondence with a top-level security software company. The company regarded me as a guy who potentially could write manuals for their glorious antivirus programs, and I basically twisted inside out, trying to convince them that they emailed the right guy.
Meanwhile, my scarce money resources kept dwindling like a stream of sand in a sandglass, when the time is almost up.
As a matter of fact, both positions were as far from what I felt was my dream job as the biggest black hole in the universe is from the Biblical paradise, so although I performed that wild song and dance before the antivirus company HRs, trying to convince them how cool, in fact, I was, all that was somewhat depressing. Certainly, it would bring more money and a chance to boast about being employed in this top-tier IT behemoth, but I cared about neither. Also, there wasn't anybody I could boast to, and writing manuals were writing fucking manuals.
So I decided to capture what was still available.
The shuttle bus quickly gained speed and glided along the highway away from the city, passing patches of pine forest intermixed with warehouses, somber and industrial gray malls, car repairment centers, and other tokens of bleak metropolitan suburbs. I knew it would take an hour, before all those signs of bustling human activity would disappear, and the wall of pines along the road would become constant, later replaced by infinite green fields, small rivers, and ponds.
All that was beyond my reach at that moment, and I found myself among the tall sleek walls of the business center located somewhere in the middle of the tangle of intersecting highways and infinite dusty parking lots.
A sequence of warm autumn days. I spend hours and hours, trying to convert an obscure reality of processor signals into some picture in my head I would be able to play with. So far, it's like a different language, or rather I need to read between lines because the lines themselves don't seem to mean anything yet. They are like some incantations, summoning some spirits, or maybe they refer to something even stranger. They could just as well be written in Latin.
It occurred to me that every day I ride on a bus, I notice new details I haven't seen before. Speaking of selective perception. Like, I noticed a small pond surrounded by scattered copses of birch trees. It didn't register in my memory before today, although I couldn't not see it - my eyes were pointed in that direction, through the bus window. Nonetheless, when I tried to replay what I saw, this picture didn't surface. Mostly, I can recall things, to which I attach some descriptions the moment I see them. Like a mall with a giant plasma screen placed on its front wall. A vast parking lot filled with hundreds of yellow taxis. A bright stream of car headlights reminding a surreal industrial Christmas garland. A concrete wall along a long stretch of the road.
Currently, there's no much time for anything except the mysterious world of the hardware and documentation, written in such a way, like there is a huge shared secret behind all this - like, when you overhear a conversation between people, and this conversation is based on many previous conversations and mutual experiences, so remote from your own experiences that you don't understand shit. It becomes a code, a secretive slang of conspirators, a stream of signals, a small cap of ice peeking above the ocean surface, hinting at a huge and complex landscape below the water. This is what's hidden between the lines.
So, yes, with so much new incoming information and efforts to convert all those signals into a meaningful picture, there's hardly enough energy for something creative. All I can do at this stage is making mental descriptions, hoping that I'll write them down later. Still, it's kind of better than nothing. Making observations, mental notes, maintaining the routine of writing something down during short periods of time between sleep and untangling the mysterious world of computer chips, using the remaining energy. There's not much of it anyway. Like, I don't know, paying attention to small things, then compiling them into a mosaic. Maybe it's good for training memory.
The leaves that, instead of gracefully changing color to the vibrant autumn palette, are just getting dry and crumbling, forming a gray rustling carpet under the trees. Probably, it has something to do with global warming, temperature swings, humidity, and shit. I don't know.
The steps of the shuttle bus entrance, illuminated by green neon lights. A wide balcony outside the glass wall in the hall filled with a mix of sand and gravel - an element of industrial design. Rows of eerily identical work desks behind the dark aquamarine glass in the building on the opposite side.
It's a strangely warm day for the end of September, that is, it's hot. I wear a t-shirt, and I still feel the heat. My brain and my ability to write had been blocked once again, and at that point, I fell into a state of indifference; my gig I, worked on for a year, has trickled out dry and disappeared - there is not much going on in terms of crypto startups and shit. Then I counted my remaining money and realized that I needed a full-time job asap. Any kind of job; doesn't matter, something that would allow me to survive. Because the boundary, beyond which was total bankruptcy, came dangerously close, and I had no idea what I would do without finding any source of more or less stable income. So I found a place where I kind of write documentation for microprocessors, kind of, in fact, it is more like copy-pasting pieces of text from one file to another. It's not that bad, considering that during a couple of weeks I've learned about processors, electronics, and other stuff like that more than I knew for all my previous life.
But everything became somewhat surreal. Because I stopped writing, like, it hasn't been yet a long pause, but I already feel how my identity is disintegrating. If I don't write I don't really exist. And I'm only connected to anything and anybody through my writing, so I also immediately felt being hurled out into the open space, quickly disappearing into the void of oblivion. And the true stakes kinda started dawning on me; if I won't make it, my existence will become something utterly inconsequential, something that never really mattered, or rather I will turn into a ghost, an invisible shadow that only exists in some solipsistic dream, in the realm separated from everything else by the same invisible wall that separates me from the world of my dreams - by the fact that I don't really belong there.
Fifteen minutes ago, a cashier girl had an epileptic seizure right in front of me; she was checking out my groceries: a few lemons, a couple of cookies, and a pack of washing powder. Something went wrong with the cash register, I think it's those cookies, there is something wrong with them; like, they are cursed or something. Someday before, a cashier had to manually type their code into the machine, and then a long line of strange numbers started dancing on the display. Then the cashier gave up and told me to stuff those cookies. This time I tried again. I saw that girl before, like she had some remarkable features about her, like, idk, many small rings in her ears, and nose, and lips, and like everywhere, and when she stood up to fetch the cigarettes from the top shelf of the rack above the counter I saw another ring in her navel, With her plump figure, suntan, bleached white feathers in her hair, and soft expression on her face, contrasting with half gothic half hardcore clubbing makeup, and those multiple rings, she was freaking hot. I felt like I was falling in love and shit. Probably, it was like, the tenth or something episode during that day, but nevertheless.
This time, it was the end of this surreal hot summer day in the middle of the autumn. Global warming and shit. Her lipstick this day was even more gothic than before - dark, cherry-red, and vibrant. So she was typing those mysterious codes of evil cookies into the cash register, and the cash register returned a long string of mysterious numbers. Everything the way it was the first time. And she turned back at me, and her mouth was slightly distorted with something that looked to me like a smirk of frustration. But this distortion of her mouth kept growing more pronounced and grotesque; then suddenly I realized that something was horribly wrong. Then she started falling on the floor, I caught her hand, trying to keep her from falling; a middle-aged security guy reacted first, realizing what was going on. About calling an ambulance and stuff. Then the foam started coming from her mouth, so it could be clearly identified as an epileptic seizure. I never realized how many actions were required to be made really asap to make sure that a person with a seizure wouldn't freaking die in the process. Somewhat fascinating.
I wonder was it because of evil cookies or maybe because I carry something toxic inside my eyes. After all, she had a seizure right after looking at me. Or probably it's the cookies, I think it's more like it. Lately, when I look people in the eyes they immediately start looking in a different direction and further avoid eye contact altogether. If they don't, I keep looking in their eyes without blinking until they do. Because I'm angry, and, probably, I vent my anger and frustration in such small and inconspicuous ways. Because my fate in this latest flourish of bad luck stripped me from my identity and my pride - rendering me a grain of sand among the infinite mass of office dwellers populating office spaces, working hard probably to increase the national GDP and shit. Or maybe not, who on earth knows what this all is about, after all. After months of struggle, starvation, infinite worries about money, rises and falls, I eventually slid into a comfortable existence along with the cafeteria, business lunches, and enough money to afford them.
Probably, I should be happy because everything became easier, but I miss new articles with my name in their bylines - the sweet fruit of the bitter and desperate struggle, twisting my brain and squeezing it like a freaking lemon. I miss that shit. I miss this fight, and without it, life seems somewhat empty; it's just a stretch of time devoted to something that is going to become irrelevant quicker than I have a chance to tell about it. Maybe it doesn't really matter, to begin with.
It's strange when you walk in the middle of the Autumn, wearing a t-shirt, and it still feels hot. It's even more strange when it's late in the evening. The late evening in the middle of the Autumn, long after the sunset. I walk in the middle of the crowd of hipsters, interspersed with old hipsters, families, old hipsters with their families, and just old people, dispersing after a pyrotechnic show, (it doesn't take much these days to draw a huge crowd from all over the city) and it's freaking hot. It's the middle of the Autumn; it's night; I wear a t-shirt, and it's still hot to the point when I begin to sweat. There is something wrong with that, I don't know - like, global warming is real and shit. Somewhere on another continent, I read in the news, there are hurricanes and floods, and it's also pretty freaking scary. So maybe we need to emit less greenhouse gas and stuff.
Living in this city is somewhat cute, until you get into the thick of people's conversations that are somewhat weird, like I don't know, sometimes it begins to feel like it was with that guy from the movie, whose life was a reality show, and people surrounding him inserted bits of commercials in casual conversations. I hear something about some irrelevant stuff, regarding pop music no one with a grain of good taste and common sense would give a shit about. And other irrelevant stuff nobody should give a shit about. Like, food, menus, calories, traffic jams, and other shit like that. What's the point in discussing traffic jams - they are eternal. They had been brought here by the powers of evil, and they'll never go away. This is the point, and there's no point in discussing it further.
All this is somewhat amusing at first; then it gets a little depressing because it keeps repeating again and again. Like you get stuck in a limbo of trivia that occupies people's minds twenty-four seven. NPC stuff. It feels strange but, at the same time, it gives some explanation to small and mysterious things I noticed before, but couldn't figure out their meaning and purpose. I don't know, before I managed to live somewhat on the fringes, in my own personal limbo, being insulated from endless streams of conversations about nothing. When you live this way, without paying attention to what's actually going on around, everything looks nice, and you might think that something is brewing in the depths of this world. Like, everything seems meaningful because I actually have no idea what is going on behind this facade. I might think that there's a lot of fascinating stuff going on. But after listening to the conversations, it begins to feel that everything turns around food, and traffic jams, and some small events and insignificant occasions. A normal life. Maybe this is how it should be, but at the same time, something is missing. Or I miss this endless fight for survival and articles with my name in their bylines.
Also, it feels a bit like a defeat - a sweet surrender to a merciful foe, who returned me to the cute and comfy framework of the normal life. It's a bit of a relief but, at the same time, it's so humiliating that I want to punch a wall every now and then. And it's even more humiliating because it's so relieving - to clock in and out of office, do some work that doesn't cause pain and agony in my brain, get a steady stream of money. I'm afraid if I get used to it I will actually turn into nothingness - without a name, or purpose, or anything. At least, I have my pride and my spite - things that keep me alive, aware, and vigilant. I hope it wasn't the last fight, and, in any case, there's nothing to lose, except my identity, and it was stripped off me, and I want it back. It's important, and I will stop at nothing.
So far, what remains is to observe a familiar landscape outside the corporate minivan, transferring employees to the business center each morning, trying to describe its details, convert images into phrases. Hoping that this routine would preserve my brain from disintegrating into a fluffy pink shit. Cannot say it takes a lot of effort. Like, I mentioned before, each time I notice more details. The first time, when the minivan rolled out to the turnpike stretching outside the city among the fields and pine groves, I didn't notice at all a small lake. The second time, I noticed the lake and the fact that it was surrounded by groves of trees, different from pines. Because they had like, leaves on them and shit. Since I couldn't remember what exactly were those trees I assumed those were birches. Because that's a kind of a tree I know, like, I don't know many kinds of trees. The third time, I saw that those were not birches, and I actually didn't know what kind of trees they were. Also, I noticed that the lake was connected to the river - I didn't notice the river during my first two trips. Speaking of selective attention.
I always wanted to note how cute this autumn happens to be, like, it's still so warm and stuff. The only thing is that leaves don't turn colorful and vivid like it used to be in the past when maples turned vibrant red and yellow, and there was a bright dense coverlet of flamboyant leaves on the ground. Now the leaves just dry out, getting gray and crispy like cheap wrapping paper. Then they fall on the ground, where the grass keeps growing and blooming, not giving a shit about seasons. Scattering of dry dead leaves among the bright green grass. And the shitty pop music in the minivan's cabin. And people wearing facial expressions, as if the destiny of the world lies on their fragile shoulders. And it causes them endless head and stomach aches and shit. I don't know - like everything has conspired to torture their tender souls in this bright sunny morning.
I keep paying attention to the details, trying to figure out how I would describe this person or that, this sight or that. It pays off in terms of that I started noticing more, seeing connections, causes and effects, some meaningful details revealing something important about a person or a situation. I listen to conversations in the subway, in the corporate minivan, in the office, trying to memorize some details and transfer them to a different context, trying to figure out how they reveal the personality of the speaker. I notice when blanks in my memory are filled with my imagination and preconceptions, and how it's often wrong. Like, I saw that huge mall somewhere along the highway outside the city, and I imagined that its front wall was solid concrete. I remembered a gigantic plasma screen showing advertisements; apart from that I didn't remember much, so I filled the blanks with the concrete. In fact, it was a huge glass wall, through the dark and opaque surface of which it was possible to see what was going on inside. Or maybe not, and my imagination just fills another blank, in regard to what I don't remember.
A conversation in the minivan, with a guy explaining to somebody on the phone something about a flash drive that keeps screwing up the whole system every time it's plugged in somewhere. In my dreams, people I mingled with this summer point fingers at me, laughing "Oh, the writer, so what do you write now?" I write fucking microprocessor docs, copying pieces of text from one document to another. It's a fucking mental masturbation, but at least I know a lot about processors now. Probably, before the end of the year, I'll know so much about electronics I'll be able to write stories and fairy tales about it. Anyway, it has just become more clear how important all this stuff is.
We can succumb to slumber of warm caves
Where there's always light, and food, and laughter
Where everyone is sleeping and dreamwalking in their sleep
They see in their dreams some glory and some purpose
But all this just a dream
Or we can stand in freezing wind, on hilltop with the lance
In pain, and fear, and misery, and doubt,
Not knowing if we win
Or we'll get crashed into a myriad of shards
And be dispersed by the wind
The only thing we know we're alive
We feel awake and see the way
The path that'll take us somewhere
If we survive and win
And won't succumb to slumber
Images huddle and buzz - restless and impatient - in my head; I try to give them shape, convert them into words, but they stay inside, and they accumulate there like a load of plums left in a plastic bag, threatening to turn into a messy, rotting, disintegrating mass. Whiffs of icy wind in the morning. Fading shaggy carpet of autumn leaves losing its yellow vibrance and becoming dull and brown; they are somewhat on that way there - every day their color dissolves until they succumb to the cold white brightness of snowflakes covering them. The snowflakes will dance slowly and eerily in the air, in the dim milky light filtering through the solid and infinite white sheet of clouds suspended low above the roofs. They will twirl and spin in silence, carried by an invisible and inaudible wind, then settle on the ground, saturating it with freezing wetness. The asphalt of sidewalks will turn into a soggy labyrinth of twisted and chaotic mirrors reflecting the gray sky, and sliced and distorted silhouettes of passersby.
One day canopies of tree leaves flashed and turned into bright yellow, mimicking the festive color of the sun, the way it looked in those last short days when it still ruled and dominated reality around. Then some became orange and red. The days gradually grew colder, but it was hardly perceptible in the heat of vivid colors and the sunlight that was so intense that it seemed that the summer made yet another comeback, this time to last forever. One day the air smelled of spring - wet grass and ozone. Although maybe that had something to do with those yellow autumn leaves, which, falling down everywhere, formed vast ruffled flamboyant carpets.
When everything fades, turning into shades of gray and brown under the steady cold stream of wind from the north, these lawns and fields of grass - acid green - stay the same. This grass is unbeatable and immortal probably. Probably, it grew on some infinite plains among the northern mountains, learning to survive years after years of overcasts, frigid air, and winds. Now it's the only color that has survived while everything else is dissolving as an oil painting dropped into a bucket of solvent - colors dispersing in the murky liquid, mixing and turning into brown sludge. Now it's going to be only this acidic vibrant green for a while, until it too succumbs to the ghostly sentinels of snowflakes, dancing and cavorting gracefully in the milky light of one freezing morning. Then there will be more of them; they'll multiply, getting heavy and clumsy, pregnant with cold - not dancing anymore, just floating down steadily and purposefully, and when they touch the ground they won't melt into icy dew anymore - they'll stay there like weightless fluff, gradually transforming into thick blanket of deadly indifference - and then one day the world will be black and white like a negative of an old photograph, hopelessly underexposed.
Some thoughts and questions brought up in a recent conversation:
The first, what are so-called intuitive probabilities and how we can measure them? Like, for example, if I say something like, "I'm ninety percent sure that something is true," where exactly from do I get this figure? And if it's not derived from some calculations involving some other factors that can also be measured, then what does it mean when I say, "ninety percent?" in this context. Is it some attempt to add some deceptive feeling of certainty and precision to something that's intrinsically uncertain and imprecise. In any case, this attaching of measurement to the intuitive feeling of probability doesn't really add any new information - it's just a somewhat of another way to say the same thing, in which case "ninety percent" doesn't really mean "ninety percent;" it means something different in this context, and what it means is an open and interesting question. My interlocutor suggested that it's a way to ensure that we both have the same perception of this probability as if saying "it's ninety percent probability" is clearer than saying "it's very likely." Something to alleviate imperfections and imprecision of the natural language, which leaves too much to our subjective perceptions - like, if I might mean one thing by "very likely" - for me it's the same thing as a certainty, while for somebody, I tell this to, it might mean something different, like fifty percent probability or something.
Which makes me think about two things: the tricky nature of language - when I tell something to somebody, and, due to the differences at how we internally understand certain concepts and words, this message gets distorted and altered by our subjective perceptions, and my interlocutor gets a totally different message. Speaking of post-structuralism and one interesting example that stuck in my mind at some point. It's the saying "You can tell a pioneer by the arrows in his back." The interesting thing about it is that it allows different interpretations. Like, one of those is the obvious metaphor that those who explore the frontlines, running ahead of others, have a tendency to be deceived and betrayed by their peers who shoot metaphorical "arrows" in their backs. At the same time, it can be a reference to the period of American history when explorers and pioneers colonized new lands while being in a constant struggle with native tribes that shot arrows at them quite literally. So, well, it's an illustration of a somewhat ambiguous nature of language and metaphors.
Another thing I think about is what exactly this intuitive probability is; like, even subjectively - when I think that something is "very likely," I think about probabilities, but it never occurred to me that I could pin some specific number to this feeling - like it's ninety percent chance or seventy-five percent chance - actually, I don't see any scale at all; it all boils down to some feeling. In fact, it probably can be expressed by picturing a scale containing only three points: "Very likely" - somewhat close to the point of absolute certainty merging with it, "very unlikely" - the same thing but on the opposite side of the scale. And "it can be either way" - the point in the middle meaning that something has the same probabilities of being true or false or, in other words, I have no idea. Something like that.
Here's an interesting example. For example, I sit in a cafe and wonder how likely is that somebody sat at this place - I'm currently sitting at - before during this day. I'd say, judging by the overall activity and the number of visitors in the cafe, it's very likely. Then I look out the window, see an old building on the opposite side of the alley and wonder, what's the probability that somebody lives there. I'd say, according to my life experience and observations, it's also very likely. Now a tricky question: what's more likely, the first assumption that somebody sat at this table - I'm sitting at - previously during this day, or the second assumption that somebody lives in that old house on the opposite side from the cafe? And if I say that one of those two things is more likely than another, how would I measure the difference? Considering that the character of the reasoning behind each of those conclusions is somewhat different, plus I cannot attach any numbers to any factors supporting or contradicting my assumptions. I'd say this is where the intuitive perception of probabilities goes haywire, (if someone disagrees I dare you to prove me wrong)
Another thing that strikes me as strange is why do we perceive colors the way we perceive colors, well, ok, more on that later...
Everything goes so fast
And there's so little sleep
Neighbors do something strange
I hear screams from above
Since morning
Maybe they have sex or they murder each other
I dunno
But I wanted to say something else
Something completely different
About ghosts of melancholy
Embodied in sad faces
Who follow me everywhere
Like a cloud of depression
Like they want to get inside my head
Or something
This freestyle sucks dick
But there's something else
Something about orange glow
Of street lamps passing so fast
And of the fatalism of somebody
Riding in a tin can through the barrel of a highway
And statistically, you can only have so many rides
Before it hits something and starts rolling all over the road smashing bones, thoughts, and dreams
Like, whatever
There's another thing
About a chain of passing dreams
About the time mercilessly running away
About philosophical thoughts buried in daily routine
I believe one day they will all come to the surface
My mind will unfreeze and my fingers get to work
Weaving all kinds of strange things in this mottled fabric borne out of my existence
Maybe there'll be a couple of ears of somebody who will listen
I'm on a crusade against all gray and dull
Again those who try to erase flowers from the walls
This space is already filled with digits to the limits
I want to start interpreting them in sounds and pictures
This stream is getting through
Through barriers and doubts
I have so much to say
And none of it makes sense
But nevertheless, I digress
I digress all the way here, I forget which key to press
And it's just for the rhyme
And forgot what I had to say
Maybe because this day is so gray
And dirty clouds trying to sneak inside
And I wave the light sword at them
Those scintillating sparks
That shine in the dark
When I trudge through the snow
Going with the flow
With the flow of ups and downs
I hear the sound of a flute
Somewhere far away
Where those pale ghosts who want to play
And to frolick in the silvery light
Of mercury lamps and xenon bright
Like yes there's so much stuff along this route
The reason dissipates when you jump and start to float
I see endless boats sailing slowly through the yellow river
The mist of centuries fades out revealing slow
Swift motion of fish dancing under the bow
I see glass globes and sparkles on the Christmas trees
I see green meadows in far away land of paradise
The flowers and the sunrise
Like, this wheel of time is spinning slowly
Like creaking torture device stretching our souls to their limits
When they become like tight guitar strings buzzing in tension about to break
I'm searching for the serenity of scuttling through the clouds
In a light speed boat sliding down a rainbow
The winter chilly draft outlines the reality
Of ghostly dark trees and cycles of life and death
Cold beauty of snowflakes
And the hope for resurrection and the sunshine
Blessed those who know the direction
Who can attach some meaning to their lives
And believe in it
Make a leap of faith and press accelerator
Sometimes we are like children in the forest
And there are so many trees
And all trails go in circles
Blessed those who are strong
Maybe cuz they don't care
Or they build a wall of simple things
Against the ocean of despair
Or they are truly those who come out to the arena
And fight against lions
Not caring about pain and death and the futility of this endeavor
Blessed those who believe in something
And make it count
In our faithless world
When we are too grown up for fairy tales and Bible and Love and Heaven
But there's something else
Something worth fighting for
Before I forgot; an idea/outline for a story - ( inspired by reading some research on policies in a specific country, which is well-known and somewhat ubiquitous, but its name won't be mentioned here)
A consortium of real-estate companies backed by government and state media policies establish and promote a network of dating sites, romantic magazines and relevant literature in order to shape public opinion in a way designed to increase demand for real estate, and promote the idea of benefits of homeownership (and a set of behaviours leading to increased consumption) in a certain society where consumption is on the ebb, and people are not quite sure whether they need to buy stuff or not, and what in general they want to do with their free money and time, meaning of life and all that.
As a result of consistent and generally successful media avalanche - the patterns of consumer behavior are formed, simultaneously defining the lifestyle and people's values.
Ok, it could be a dystopian backdrop for any kind of dystopian story, but what's interesting here that it's real. Speaking of consumerism and mysterious forces forming supply, demand, and social patterns - they can be artificially designed, and they ARE artificially designed, and it's quite interesting. Maybe it's not something particularly new though.
Chronic anxiety is not something that might seem very serious from the outside or, even I personally cannot consider it as a big deal during the periods of lucidity and calm - mainly because thinking about it in the context of one moment or one day doesn't reveal its dangerous nature. It's different when it's about long spans of time - months and years - since one simple but persistent emotion begins to pervade the whole fabric of existence and dissolve the structures of rational thought and sanity. It's, in fact, a very slow and gradual process, which makes it more insidious - you don't notice the changes, like observing a solid cliff every day during centuries you don't notice how the ocean waves slowly wear down the stone; because changes from day to day are imperceptible - they only accumulate during long periods of time. This is similar to the nature of anxiety, which always works on the background, gradually compounding its minuscule conquests, until some final small thing triggers it - when all the accumulated pressure bursts like an exploding pressure cooker or exponential curve at the point when it gets out of control and rushes upwards with the infinite speed.
So, well, I guess there are many people with this thing, inventing their own tricks and coping mechanisms and stuff, while facing the crisis; as I see it - there are some important things to keep in mind, like for example the almost philosophical notion about the struggle between our rational mind and our reptilian brain. While our reptilian brain, subconsciousness, or whatever is considered more powerful (because it's been around for much longer period - like, millions of years longer, something like that) it's maybe not that powerful - like I can compare it to the situations of actual danger causing panic in quite normal and rational people, and the essential first step there is to overcome this panic (which btw, is similar to a normal day-to-day experience with anxiety) - so the point is, it can be done, and one of the working techniques is to maintain the rational train of thoughts - however difficult it might feel under the circumstances - it, in fact, can absorb surges of panic until the onslaught (hopefully) settles down, taking some manageable form. In actual dangerous circumstances, it can give some additional benefit of figuring out the way out of the trouble, but mostly it's about preventing the victim overwhelmed by sudden fear from doing something dangerously stupid. It's the way it works. I can guess, maybe it's related to the fact that our brain is organized in such a peculiar way that emotions and rational thoughts always tend to squeeze each other out, refusing to share the same space inside the skull. That is, the more intensive your thought process, the less emotional you feel - and vice versa. At some point, on some level of neural intensity, all the emotions fade completely, then you realize that you can ignore other distressing factors like cold or physical pain - after all, it's all the same reaction of the primordial reptilian brain. I think, any emotional distress when it appears out of the blue, without any sensible reasons, it just means that this ancient and generally incomprehensible system is out of tune, running amok, whatever - but it's only one part of what comprises the brain, so it can be successfully suppressed, tuned down, and switched off completely by the power of rational thinking.
So keeping this train of thoughts alive and running is maybe a crucial thing; the energy of fear - streams of adrenaline - can be the fuel for creativity as well - the driving power preventing one from sliding into the warm and cozy space of the routine and trifles of day-to-day mindless existence. Maybe, otherwise, the temptation would be too strong. Maybe it can be also compared to swimming across the river - impossibly wide river. And life, in general, can be compared to the river because you can drown if you forget how to catch your breath and rest during the pauses between the spurts - when you struggle to stay afloat and move forward at the same time - because you always expend more energy than you actually have. Like, maybe one of the dangers of anxiety is that it prevents its victim from catching a breath, eliminating those short periods of calm and lucidity. Then it takes some time, and the swimmer - who now swims without breaks - loses strength and drowns. So it makes it important to find a way to subdue this feeling, or erase it - it's like an allegory about the monkey (reptilian brain) whose existence and activity serves the sole purpose of powering the neural activity of my rational mind - its master.