Uncertainty is Causing Your Existential Dread
In my last post, I made an argument that the foundation of an ethical and moral life is trust and truth-telling. Although I don’t want to spend a lot more time investigating this concept, I do want you to take a few moments and consider how much more difficult your life would be if you couldn’t trust anybody, including your family, friends, and colleagues. I think that much of the stress and tension that we all feel nowadays is partially driven by the erosion of trust in our society. Over the past four years we have been assaulted by messages from the highest levels that the media cannot be trusted, that the “other side” are liars, and that we are not being told the whole truth. These messages have spawned outlandish conspiracy theories and competing narratives that are unsettling and confusing. Humans, like animals, like predictability and consistency.
Although it is possible to make an argument that the news media has never been completely objective or truthful, there was a certain stability and surety that came from the fact that the stories were mostly the same. As the internet and “alternative” media sources have proliferated over the past 20 years we have seen a marked erosion of consistency in the stories that we see in the media. A good example is the recent wave of protests that began with the death of George Floyd in May 2020. As these protests spread across the country and began to devolve into violence, we saw competing narratives emerge about the groups responsible for the violence. Some media sources reported that the violence was caused by left-leaning groups like Antifa, while other media sources reported that the violence was perpetrated by right-wing groups like the Proud Boys. These competing narratives have added a level of uncertainty that make it difficult for even the most information savvy consumer to ascertain what is really going on. Although we all have a political predilection to lean one way or the other, there is still an element of uncertainty that makes it difficult for us to feel like we really know what is happening. We have become skeptical of all information sources, and we don’t trust that we are being told the “whole truth” and this skepticism and uncertainty leads to chronic, pervasive stress.
Predictability and consistency help us feel safe and secure. Research has demonstrated that one of the most important factors in healthy child development is a predictable environment and a consistent routine. Consistency and predictability builds trust; without it we live with a deep sense of existential dread that makes us feel unsettled and on edge. When we feel uncertain about what is going to happen in our lives (or the world) it causes immense stress, it primes our fight or flight response so that we are prepared to respond to whatever happens, good or bad. Always being stressed out because of an uncertain and unpredictable future has been directly correlated with increased disease prevalence and mortality.
Picture a deer walking through the forest foraging for food, when all of a sudden it comes over a small rise and is faced with a bear that is also looking for food. The deer recognizes the bear as a potential existential threat to its survival, but it is not certain that the bear will attack. In that moment the deer stops, all of it’s senses become attuned to the potential danger, and the deer’s body prepares to run or fight in order to ensure its survival. The fight or flight response is also known as the “stress response” and it is the default survival system for all animals. The deer’s body releases adrenaline and cortisol, the deer’s muscles tense, it’s heart rate and blood pressure increase as the deer’s brain and body prepare for an immense expenditure of energy.
Now, it’s important to note that it is not certain that the bear will attack the deer. Bears are opportunistic omnivores and ofter prefer food sources that require a minimal expenditure of energy, but there are occasional instances of bears chasing and killing deer, but the deer doesn’t know this. The deer only recognizes that the bear is a potential threat to its survival and it has just a few seconds to appraise the threat and decide what it’s going to do. Those few tense seconds where the deer is appraising the existential threat of the bear is how most of us live our day to day lives! We wake up every day, uncertain about what is going to happen in society and the world, and we are trapped in that moment where we feel like we need to make a decision about whether we fight or run away…but instead of actually fighting or running away we are caught in that moment of existential dread where we don’t know what is going to happen next.
Living this way, constantly on edge, never knowing what is coming next, is slowly taking a toll on our bodies, brains, and relationships. Politics, public health, the economy, and even public safety are all highly uncertain at the moment but many of us are pretending like everything this fine. Nevertheless, our bodies and brains are feeling the combined impact of this stress and, I would argue that this chronic, pervasive stress is the primary cause for many of the personal, professional, and political problems that we are facing today. Our bodies and brains are on edge, flooded with adrenaline and cortisol, and we are primed to explode with rage or run away as fast as we can, but most of us are just sitting at home watching the world burn…staring at the bear in front of us trying to figure out what it’s going to do…day after day after day.
My next post will delve more into the physiology of stress and how uncertainty and anxiety are leading to an epidemic of stress-related disease...