Zoey Is Too Drunk for This Dystopia (Zoey Ashe #3)

by Jason Pargin

“My problem,” said Zoey, “isn’t that I’m anxious about this meeting, the problem is I can’t get anxious enough about this because there are too many other things to get anxious about. This meeting isn’t even the big nightmare on the schedule, that’s coming tonight, at Catharsis. And between here and there we have to, I guess, try to solve a serial kidnapping? I mean, are we doing that before or after lunch?” “Humans have eyes that face forward, like any predator,” replied Will, in a tone like this was a classic axiom and not something a serial killer would say while chasing you through a lair full of mannequins. “We’re designed to focus in on one target, one goal at a time. If too much is going on, it plays against our strengths, just from an evolutionary point of view. Our brains are terrible at multitasking. Juggling threats causes a unique type of stress and most dysfunctional behavior you see today is just humans doing a bad job of managing it.” “Okay, then why do people like that crazy butterfly lady make up dangers instead of dealing with what’s actually in front of them? Back in my old trailer park, I had a neighbor who found out she had a mass in her lung, then spent the whole time she was dying obsessed with conspiracies about secret government mind-reading drones.” “It’s counterintuitive, but that person likely reduced their total amount of anxiety by focusing on that belief. They’re trading a hundred tedious internal fights for one, big, external battle. It actu...