Notes on a Nervous Planet

by Matt Haig

Anxiety, to quote the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, may be the ‘dizziness of freedom’,

I worry that I upset people without meaning to. I worry that I don’t check my privilege enough. I worry about people being in prison for crimes they didn’t do. I worry about human rights abuses. I worry about prejudice and politics and pollution and the world my children and their entire generation are inheriting from us. I worry about all the species going extinct because of humans.

I worry about how much I’m wrapped up in myself, which makes me even more wrapped up in myself.

‘Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’