Life is a struggle, or at least a pendulum swing, between complacency and panic. No doubt most of us are more inclined by temperament to one than to the other, and it is a moot point as to which, when unjustified or inappropriate, does the more harm. Personally I am more inclined to complacency than to panic, perhaps because I find my own life satisfactory, grosso modo, and change is therefore more likely to harm me than to do me good. Besides, there is no happiness without complacency, and even the happy revolutionary is complacent in his own way, namely in that he is acting to bring about the best for humanity, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
[amazon asin=B00MSC1RHI&template=*lrc ad (left)]The correct appreciation of danger is a difficult art. Man is by nature paranoid—paranoia is a common psychological expression of many different physiological disturbances, suggesting that it is in some sense fundamental in the human psyche—and he, Man, tends to believe that the universe constantly focuses its attention on him. We all think that the universe reciprocates our gaze: because we are looking at it, it is looking at us. I catch myself thinking paranoid thoughts quite often before I consciously put them behind me.
For example, the other day I was traveling by train from a busy station, and the only—yes, the ONLY—train out of scores of trains [amazon asin=0984907017&template=*lrc ad (right)]scheduled that was delayed was the one that I proposed to travel on. Furthermore, this has happened to me more than once, so that they, whoever they are, must be deliberately trying to inconvenience me.
I soon realize that there is no they there. That this appears to happen to me often is an illusion caused by the fact that when a train is delayed that I am not proposing to catch, I scarcely notice it, and certainly do not remember it.
Or again, only last week I was driving to a town 120 miles away when I noticed that all the traffic hold-ups were in my direction: the traffic in the opposite direction flowed without friction, like oil through fingers. But on my return, it was exactly the other way round: again the hold-ups were in my direction only. They were at it again, obstructing and frustrating me at every turn.
