I heard this and I had to stop.
Jordan Peterson describes thinking as simulation. We build an avatar of ourselves — a stand-in — and send it into the scenario we're afraid of. We watch what happens. If it fails, if it falls, if it doesn't survive — we learn that without having to live it in reality.
The avatar dies so we don't have to.
I've spent a lot of time thinking I was just anxious. Rehearsing conversations. Running outcomes. Fearing things that hadn't happened yet. But maybe that wasn't weakness. Maybe that was my mind doing its oldest job — protecting me by letting a version of me go first.
You have never thought alone. You've been running simulations. And every one of them was an act of survival.
— tabo66 There is beauty even in the hard things.
