We are urged to find calm in our lives. Calm is good, of course. But there’s a danger that clearing your mind of anxiety means clearing it of engagement with the great and troubling issues of our times.
Our political and intellectual health requires deep and sustained engagement. But this engagement can cause profound mental turmoil.
We should certainly seek to rid ourselves of the competitive anxieties in which we are schooled: about status, appearance, possessions. But beneath this are deeper anxieties we shouldn’t drop: about climate and ecological breakdown, democratic erosion, racism, sexism, plutocracy.
I don’t think there’s a simple formula for resolving this conflict between our political and mental health. But I think it is useful to remind ourselves that there is one. In other words, there is no ideal mental state to which we can aspire.
To me, it feels like walking a new tightrope every day. I need a calm mind to engage rationally with what we face. But when I engage with it, the effect is anything but calming. Every day is a cycle of calm, centred thinking leading me inexorably to blind panic.
