Inspiration - Times of Worry

2026-06-17

Current events have never been as alarming as they have been in recent months. Faced with such a frightening future, what can one do to avoid sinking into despair? The ancients sought an answer for long: should one harden oneself against the reversals of fortune by accepting that there is nothing one can do about them, as the Stoics believed? Or, on the contrary, should one not worry about things over which one has no control, but rather divert one’s attention and focus on things that can distract one, and enjoy life, as the Epicureans explain? For, as poor human ants that we are, our situation often seems meaningless. As Pascal wrote, “Let us imagine a number of men in chains, all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men.”^[1]

Not to mention the role of the media, which constantly show how dangerous the environment is, amplifying our anxiety: as the American philosopher L. Ron Hubbard writes, “Many people are not only convinced that the environment is dangerous, but that it is steadily growing more so. For many, it’s more of a challenge than they feel up to. The fact of the matter is, however, that the environment is made to appear much more dangerous than it actually is. A great number of people are professional dangerous environment makers. This includes professions which require a dangerous environment for their existence such as the politician, the policeman, the newspaperman, the undertakers and others. These people sell a dangerous environment. That is their mainstay. They feel that if they did not sell people on the idea the environment is dangerous, they would promptly go broke. So it is in their interest to make the environment far more dangerous than it is.”^[2]

Yet the environment is already dangerous enough without exaggerating it. Furthermore, “An individual’s health level, sanity level, activity level and ambition level are all monitored by his concept of the dangerousness of the environment There are real areas of danger in the environment, but there are also areas being made to seem more dangerous than they really are.”^[3] Faced with these real or imagined dangers, what can be done? One of the solutions proposed by Ron Hubbard has a lot to do with observation. He writes indeed: “If a person is marched forward into these sectors of his environment and gotten to inspect them, he can perceive for himself that the environment is not as dangerous as it is being made to seem. And with increased confidence in his ability to handle at least those sectors of his environment, his health, well-being, sanity and activity levels will rise as well.”^[4]