What do you worry about in the darkness of night when you can't sleep?
For three hours I sat blindfolded in a room, and spoke aloud everything that I worry about – from the personal to the global. On the walls were paper for the audience to write their own worries. I had on put on the walls the sentence “What do you worry about in the darkness of night when you cannot sleep.”
I don’t think that I will stop worrying as a result, but it seemed clear that others worry about almost the same things that I do… Perhaps that gives me some measure of relief that at least I am not alone.
Here is a list of some of the worries that I remember speaking. Each time I started with the phrase, “I am worried about…”
dying alone
becoming infirm
losing my memory
running out of money
leaving my house
my sisters dying
how we will survive another term with Trump
what the Supreme Court will demolish
how women will fare
whether Trump will start a nuclear war
what country Trump will offend next
what the next alert will be that we get on our phones
when the next economic crash will come
whether my retirement investments will completely disappear
how soon Antarctica will disappear
how fast the Arctic ice will melt
how fast the oceans will rise
how fast the temperatures will rise in the summer
whether there will be worse hurricanes in Boston
when our family’s house in Maine will become shorefront
what life will be like for the next generations