Comfort Molds Mental Illness

At least for me

“Condition for being a hero. If a man wants to become a hero, the snake must first become a dragon: otherwise he is lacking his proper enemy.” - Nietzsche

As I look back at the short life I have so far lived, I find a common theme: a plaguing and overwhelming desire to stay within the realm of safety. My comfort zone has stripped and killed more of me than any fearless endeavor ever could have done. 

While taking bigger risks — especially those wherein your life is on the line — can shorten your time on earth, it can sometimes be helpful to remember that a long life does not necessarily equal a fulfilling one. A life lacking in flavor, in challenges, fear and wonder, is listless and leads to decomposition of both body and soul. It brings to mind a long conveyer belt, trudging along on the same speed without end. This is not living, but mere existing. Or, to paraphrase Seneca, just because one has grey hair and wrinkles, does not mean they have lived for a long time. They have only existed for a long time. 

Those born in the mid-90s to the early 2000s, such as myself, have been accused of embodying many characteristics, yet an age of vulnerability and cowardice may best describe us. Never before has the Western world seen such tranquility. There are no wars to be drafted for, we aren’t marked by death the way we were not even 40 years earlier. Yet, we do not seem to be a generation that moves towards an uncertain future heroically. On the contrary, most (though not all) of us fear the future, we dread it and prefer to live in the past. A lingering and persistent sense of fear comes along with the thought of unpredictability, and there is really nothing quite as uncertain as the future.

These sentiments aren’t entirely our fault. We as young people are socialized into feeling weak and incapacitated. Although the ideal of self-determination is still very much present in our society today, the values connected to the implication are saturated by subliminal messages of weakness and imperfection. 

Angst, frailty, and apprehension are not the building blocks to a flourishing society. Instead, it is a gateway drug to mental illness and all the complications that come with such a wilting state of mind. If you want to take this thought one step further, it even promotes and paves the way to totalitarianism, to authoritarian rule, to a complete lack of freedom for the so-called “benefit” of a fraudulent sense of safety. 

An excellent example of this can be found in the past year and a half. Restrictions of movement, limitations on social interaction, heavy-handed control of businesses, etc. have been inhibiting our everyday lives. Governments all over the globe have reacted in a way that has revealed a truth that many have expected for a long time — that we live, as said by Edward Snowden, in a turnkey tyranny. Of course, desperate times call for desperate measures, but haven’t all totalitarian regimes claimed just that? Hopefully this threat will subside, but what about the following threats? What if more crises are manufactured today to instill even more fear in us, with the sole purpose of social control? As Joanna Bourke writes in her book Fear: A Cultural History: “(…) fear is manipulated by numerous organisations with a stake in creating fear while promising to eradicate it. Fear circulates within a wealthy economy of powerful interest groups dependent upon ensuring that we remain scared. Theologians, politicians, the media, physicians and the psychological services depend on our fright. Despite the proliferation of discourses about fear, its eradication has never been seriously countenanced: substitution of fear-inspiring discourses, rather than obliteration, has been the goal.” Or, in summary, as said by Alexander Hamilton: “to be more safe they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free”.

Though fear-mongering has been a recurring theme from the start of civilization, the importance of brave individuals has been entirely lost to us as of recent. Most powerful societies of the past considered safety a secondary value and showed a remarkable readiness to take risks in the presence of danger. Ancient Athens, seafaring Norse pirates, Renaissance Italy, the men and women living from the early to mid 20th century, were among those who were most oriented towards experimentation and a willingness to take risks. What more, they were commended for it.

From a personal perspective, the more I show a strong inclination towards the comfortable, the more stunted and self-loathing I become. In order to develop, not just on a personal level, but as a species, it seems to be of the utmost importance to overcome our readiness for the safe, and expand our horizons beyond the comfortable. If taken at face value, it is but a small price to pay for the alternative: a redundant, Möbius-strip-like life, in the claws of an contracting and confining comfort-zone. To deteriorate to the reality crafted by our mind and fall into the black abyss of mental disorders and illusory fears. 

For those who already suffer from anxiety and melancholia, sometimes the thought of leaving those spaces which we perceive as “safe” can stir up even more unease and dejection. If that’s the case for you as much as it was for me, perhaps it is helpful to think of it more as an extension of the comfort-zone, not a departure. Imagine the comfort-zone as a dartboard. The bull’s eye is the core of your safe-space, small and restricted, and each encompassing ring takes you further away from the middle. Or, if that doesn’t help, you can think of it as an act of altruism. Unlike the pusillanimous who puts their own safety above all else, and expects everyone to conform to them, the brave individual is willing to risk themselves in order to move society forward and be more readily available to friends and family. 

As always, there is no better way to conclude than with Nietzsche, who said it best: “the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius!”

In order to live a happier and more fulfilling life we need to embrace change and grow acquainted to uncertainty, and not idolize safety but instead take it as the fraudulent and fleeting thing it is.