Everywhere you look you see signs of anxiety in our culture. The way people behave. The products we consume. The health conditions we have.

Why are we so anxious? It certainly isn’t good for us. Here’s my hypothesis tonight: three elements that are at least semi-controllable feed into our collective anxiety.

The first element is the emphasis on speed and getting things done quickly to fit in more things: school, work, exercise, family, friends. 24 hour news cycles and 24/7 drug stores. Everyone takes pills to go to sleep,  pills to wake up, pills to calm down..

Another element feeding into the anxiety is distraction. There’s a feeling we must always be moving and busy. Multitasking. We rarely give our full attention to anything. Depending on your age, you may have grown up with the Internet, which creates continual distractions.  Schools recently started banning smart phones from the classroom because they make it impossible for kids to pay attention.  If I feel out of sorts without a real reason, it’s usually because my immediate environment is cluttered. If it’s too messy, I can’t think clearly.

The third element that creates anxiety is the lack of privacy. Often it’s self-inflicted. People put cameras everywhere. They allow local governments to put up surveillance cameras. They’re on our streets, in and around businesses, on front porches, and in private homes. The cameras make me feel like I’m in a zoo, where spectators can observe any part of my life. But many people want to document their lives. I often see a woman in my neighborhood filming herself talking while she walks her dog. You see people filming big moments in their lives on their phones instead of being present and absorbed in them as they happen. Algorithms pick up on your interests via your Internet browsing history. Companies then buy your data to see what you’ve looked at and offer up content and products.

Underlying these elements is something entirely outside our control, which is the speed of change. Humans aren’t built for rapid change and we live in a world that continually shifts annd transforms. It wasn’t always that way—not for most of recorded history. For most of recorded time, change happened very slowly. If you were born in the year 900, your life was probably exactly like the life of your ancestors who lived in the year 700 or 500. But if we look at a more recent 200-year period, there were huge changes between 1700 and 1900. The Industrial Revolution (manufacturing and industry) changed everything about the way most people lived, worked, shopped, and traveled.

Starting in 1900, change began to happen at a bewildering pace.

This picture called Morning was made in 1907 by Clarence H. White. It shows his wife Jane in the early morning hours outside their home in Newark, Ohio.  The picture exudes serenity and harmony, and there’s no sign of rushing or distraction.

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Let’s move forward sixteen years to 1923. This series of images also feature a young woman in the morning. This girl is a stereotypical lighthearted flapper, with short hair and makeup, surrounded by a number of products. We see some of the elements of anxiety creeping in with the disorganized profusion of creams and powders and jewelry.

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In some ways, the 1920s pictures are much closer to our current world than this picture by Angelo Rizzuto. It was taken 25 years after the flapper picture but this picture of a woman sitting on her luggage in Grand Central Station in 1958 is more tranquil.

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The background of the picture is filled with people, but the floors are clean and there’s no overcrowding. The light and high ceilings create a natural serenity.

Though we can do nothing about the speed of change continuing apace, minimizing distraction, slowing down, and preserving privacy are at least partly within our control and may be good for the soul.

i suspect a lot of people see this topic very differently than I do. I’d be interested to hear from you!

What a rambling post this has been!  I’ve been raveling a thread.  Happy Friday everyone!