> I wonder if it's, in particular, a phenomenon of affluent societies that haven't had to deal with serious stressors in a long time.
Most likely it is, and I'd much rather live with occasionally being scared shitless by a global pandemic that might not be as bad as we feel it is than to deal with continual serious stressors day-in day-out.
> cultural response here worries me a lot
Why? I get that resilience is an important trait in a number of walks of life, but being concerned about a quite-deadly airborne respiratory virus that could be transferred by any Tom, Dick or Harry within close proximity seems like quite a valid thing to let get on top of you.
There's also the sense of unknown about this all.
Dying by cancer is, unless it's especially niche, quite well documented. And though you wont be around to rationalise it, being killed by a bomb is also a well understood process too.
Being killed by something that someone might just exhale into your general direction, that has no documented cure, isn't that well understood by most of the population any more (and damn well shouldn't have to be).
"It is what it is" is a great way to build mental resilience in trying times, but when you can't really identify what "it" actually "is", it becomes a lot harder.
Most likely it is, and I'd much rather live with occasionally being scared shitless by a global pandemic that might not be as bad as we feel it is than to deal with continual serious stressors day-in day-out.
> cultural response here worries me a lot
Why? I get that resilience is an important trait in a number of walks of life, but being concerned about a quite-deadly airborne respiratory virus that could be transferred by any Tom, Dick or Harry within close proximity seems like quite a valid thing to let get on top of you.
There's also the sense of unknown about this all.
Dying by cancer is, unless it's especially niche, quite well documented. And though you wont be around to rationalise it, being killed by a bomb is also a well understood process too.
Being killed by something that someone might just exhale into your general direction, that has no documented cure, isn't that well understood by most of the population any more (and damn well shouldn't have to be).
"It is what it is" is a great way to build mental resilience in trying times, but when you can't really identify what "it" actually "is", it becomes a lot harder.