From Get Shorty: Karen Flores: Weren't you scared back there? Chili Palmer: You bet. Karen Flores: You don't act like it. Chili Palmer: Well, I was scared then, but I'm not scared now. How long do you want me to be scared? A FEAST OF CATASTROPHE Though we may try to make it so fear is never trivial. When our brains light up and the chemicals surge it doesn’t matter if we’re the elephant terrorized by a mouse or if we’ve just heard that two miles upriver the dam is bursting. Controlling your response to the sky’s falling is learned behavior but it can’t be learned without first experiencing a feast or at least a taste of catastrophe. RW
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It’s interesting to think how the experience of catastrophe can sensitize us, such that the next exposure triggers an exaggerated response. And on the contrary, how the experience can desensitize us, through having learned that we can can cope. Maybe it depends on how trivial vs dire were the consequences that we went through.