“Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.” Queen Victoria
Are you good in a disaster? When the proverbial hits the fan? Or during a tragedy? I think I am.
At funerals I don’t fall to pieces. I’ve been in a few close-to-death experiences up glaciers and tumbling down mountains. During these times, my mind turns brutally focused and everything around me goes still and quiet and I get the job done.
I’m not a screamer. I attend to spiders and snakes in the house (you didn’t have them in yours growing up?).
And, actually, people like me like ourselves best in a crises. I think it’s the notion of rising to the occasion, having something to apply ourselves to. Being useful. It’s kind of primeval. How many occasions are there to truly be out on the edge, responding in undiluted, almost animalistic ways?
I even seek out drama to respond to. When my spirit feels stale, I’ll go for a mountain bike ride that scares me. Or a surf. It’s so I can cathartic-ise my bourgeois, suburban ennui.
In contrast, I find some day-to-day issues really hard to deal with. I always have. I can stand in the supermarket in front of toothpaste and honestly not be able to decide Aim or Colgate.
And it can make we want to cry.
