Notes on a Nervous Planet

Let’s begin our journey through the gentle, healing landscape of understanding why our minds feel so burdened in the modern world. Imagine waking up, your heart already racing—not from any visible threat, but from a thousand invisible ones. The phone glows beside your bed, buzzing with updates, reminders, and the world’s news. It’s not just you. This is the experience of millions, perhaps billions, who feel the weight of a world that never sleeps.

We live in an age of excess—of options, information, and expectations. There are more books than we could ever read, more shows than we could ever watch, and more messages than we can ever answer. This abundance, instead of making us feel free, often leaves us feeling trapped. We are like computers with too many windows open, our minds spinning with the rainbow wheel of overload.

But why does this happen? Our brains, shaped by millennia of slow, predictable change, now face a world that shifts at the speed of light. Once, a threat was a wild animal or a change in the weather. Now, it’s an email, a notification, a trending topic, or even a well-meaning message from a friend. The fight-or-flight response, designed to save us from predators, now activates for every ping and buzz. We are distracted from distraction by distraction.

Even positive changes—a new job, a move to a new city, a long-awaited vacation—can trigger anxiety. The body doesn’t always distinguish between good and bad change; it simply reacts to the unfamiliar. This is why, in a world of constant novelty, our minds can feel perpetually on edge.

And yet, the threats are often invisible. There is no shark in the water, but we still hear the music. Our worries multiply: about health, about loved ones, about the state of the world. We imagine catastrophes, not because we are pessimists, but because our minds are trying to keep us safe in a world that feels unpredictable.

So what can we do? The first step is simply to notice. To recognize that feeling overwhelmed is not a personal failing, but a rational response to an overloaded environment. Awareness is the beginning of healing. As we move forward, we’ll explore how society and media shape these feelings, and how we can gently reclaim our sense of calm.

Next, let’s look at how the world outside—society, media, and our own self-image—amplify these anxieties, and what we can do to soften their impact.