Notes on a Nervous Planet

by Matt Haig

So, as physical health and mental health are intertwined, couldn’t the same be said about the modern world and our mental states? Couldn’t aspects of how we live in the modern world be responsible for how we feel in the modern world? Not just in terms of the stuff of modern life, but its values, too. The values that cause us to want more than we have. To worship work above play. To compare the worst bits of ourselves with the best bits of other people. To feel like we always lack something.

I want to know if one of the reasons I sometimes feel like I am on the brink of a breakdown is partly because the world sometimes seems on the brink of a breakdown.

As Montaigne put it, “He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.”

All that catastrophizing is irrational, but it has an emotional power. And it isn’t just folk with anxiety who know this. Advertisers know it. Insurance sales people know it. Politicians know it. News editors know it. Political agitators know it. Terrorists know it. Sex isn’t really what sells. What sells is fear.

It is all sensation and no information. If you find the news severely exacerbates your state of mind, the thing to do is SWITCH IT OFF. Don’t let the terror into your mind. No good is done by being paralyzed and powerless in front of nonstop rolling news. The news unconsciously mimics the way fear operates—focusing on the worst things, catastrophizing, listening to an endless, repetitive stream of information on the same worrying topic. So, it can be hard to tell these days where your anxiety disorder ends and where actual news begins.

To see the act of learning as something not for its own sake but because of what it will get you reduces the wonder of humanity. We are thinking, feeling, art-making, knowledge-hungry, marvelous animals, who understand ourselves and our world through the act of learning. It is an end in itself. It has far more to offer than the things it lets us write on application forms. It is a way to love living right now.

We often find ourselves wishing for more hours in the day, but that wouldn’t help anything. The problem, clearly, isn’t that we have a shortage of time. It’s more that we have an overload of everything else.

We are drowning in books just as we are drowning in TV shows. And yet we can only read one book—and watch one TV show—at a time. We have multiplied everything, but we are still individual selves. There is only one of us. And we are all smaller than an internet. To enjoy life, we might have to stop thinking about what we will never be able to read and watch and say and do, and start to think of how to enjoy the world within our boundaries. To live on a human scale. To focus on the few things we can do, rather than the millions of things we can’t.

The internet has enabled us to join together and make change happen. For better and for worse. The trouble is that if we are plugged in to a vast nervous system, our happiness—and misery—is more collective than ever. The group’s emotions become our own.

The word “viral” is perfect at describing the contagious effect caused by the combination of human nature and technology. And, of course, it isn’t just videos and products and tweets that can be contagious. Emotions can be, too. A completely connected world has the potential to go mad, all at once.

By the way, “touched a raw nerve” is an irrelevant phrase if you have anxiety. Every nerve feels raw.

Remember that how you react to the news isn’t just about what the news is, but how you get it. The internet and breaking news channels report news in ways that make us feel disorientated. It is easy to believe things are getting worse, when they might just make us feel worse.

Multitasking creates a dopamine-addiction cycle, rewarding the brain for losing focus.

I think the world is always going to be a mess. And I am always going to be a mess. Maybe you’re a mess, too. But—and this bit is everything for me—I believe it’s possible to be a happy mess. Or, at least, a less miserable mess. A mess who can cope.

I hope it all makes sense. Or if it doesn’t make sense, I hope it makes nonsense in ways that might get you thinking.

The problem is not that the world is a mess, but that we expect it to be otherwise. We are given the idea that we have control. That we can go anywhere and be anything. That, because of free will in a world of choice, we should be able to choose not just where to go online or what to watch on TV or which recipe to follow of the billion online recipes, but also what to feel. And so when we don’t feel what we want or expect to feel, it becomes confusing and disheartening. Why can’t I be happy when I have so much choice? And why do I feel sad and worried when I don’t really have anything to be sad and worried about?

That’s the problem with mental illness. It’s easy not to judge people for having an illness; it’s a lot harder not to judge people for how the illness occasionally causes them to behave. Because people can’t see the reasons.

For me, reading was never an antisocial activity. It was deeply social. It was the most profound kind of socializing there was. A deep connection to the imagination of another human being. A way to connect without the many filters society normally demands.

Connecting with the world has nothing to do with Wi-Fi.

There is no future. Planning for the future is just planning for another present in which you will be planning for the future.

Don’t beat yourself up for being a mess. It’s fine. The universe is a mess. Galaxies are drifting all over the place. You’re just in tune with the cosmos.