So, yeah, COVID-related anxiety is primarily an uncertainty-of-outcome anxiety. Each breath of public air tilts the odds just a little bit more against me, but I don't get to know in advance which situations are genuinely dangerous, or whether I'll make it out of the dangerous ones intact, or exactly what would happen if I *didn't* make it out intact. (Hell, I wouldn't even get to know the first one in *hindsight*: I have to go out often enough that if I *did* get sick I would never know for sure which outing it was that screwed me over.)
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>>I'm not sure about a *single distinctive signal* which does that thing, as opposed to its being a side effect of general reasoning about my situation coupled with general pursuit-of-my-values?
I'm not sure if I can disentangle fear from the process of deciding that something is best avoided: it seems like a manifestation of that decision.
I *have* occasionally seen the world through a positive lens, where things are basically okay as they are but they *could* be even better (rather than things being unacceptably bad as they are, with adequacy being a goal off in the distance). While this state is more effective than I might naively *expect*, I'm definitely slower at adding improvements to my life than at making repairs.
no subject
Wait, hang on, I've talked about the distinction here before.
...wait, hang on, I've talked about the distinction here *with you* before.
So, yeah, COVID-related anxiety is primarily an uncertainty-of-outcome anxiety. Each breath of public air tilts the odds just a little bit more against me, but I don't get to know in advance which situations are genuinely dangerous, or whether I'll make it out of the dangerous ones intact, or exactly what would happen if I *didn't* make it out intact. (Hell, I wouldn't even get to know the first one in *hindsight*: I have to go out often enough that if I *did* get sick I would never know for sure which outing it was that screwed me over.)
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>>I'm not sure about a *single distinctive signal* which does that thing, as opposed to its being a side effect of general reasoning about my situation coupled with general pursuit-of-my-values?
I'm not sure if I can disentangle fear from the process of deciding that something is best avoided: it seems like a manifestation of that decision.
I *have* occasionally seen the world through a positive lens, where things are basically okay as they are but they *could* be even better (rather than things being unacceptably bad as they are, with adequacy being a goal off in the distance). While this state is more effective than I might naively *expect*, I'm definitely slower at adding improvements to my life than at making repairs.