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muhammad-ubaidullah-khan · 1 year

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One Vote for This Age of Anxiety by Margaret Mead

When critics wish to repudiate~ the world in which we live today, one of their familiar ways of doing it is to castigate modern man because anxiety is his chief problem. This, they say, in W.H. Auden's phrase, is the age of anxiety. This is what we have arrived at with all our vaunted~ progress, our great technological advances, our great wealth --everyone goes about with a burden of anxiety so enormous that, in the end, our stomachs and our arteries~ and our skins express the tension under which we live. Americans who have lived in Europe come back to comment on our favorite farewell which instead of the old goodbye (God be with you), is now "Take it easy," each American admonishing the 0ther not to break down from the tension and strain of modern life.

Whenever an age is characterized by a phrase, it is presumably in contrast to other ages. If we are the age of anxiety, what were other ages? And here the critics do a very amusing thing. First, they give us lists of the opposites of anxiety: security, trust, self-confidence, self-direction. Then, without much further discussion, they let us assume that other ages, other periods of history, were somehow the ages of trust or confident direction.

The savage who, on his South Sea island, simply sat and let bread fruit fall into his lap, the simple peasant, at one with the fields he ploughed and the beasts he tended, the craftsman busy with his tools and lost in the fulfillment of the instinct of workmanship --these are the counter-images conjured up by descriptions of the strain under which men live today. But no one who lived in those days has returned to testify how paradisiacal they really were.

Certainly if we observe and question the savages or simple peasants in the world today, we find something quite different. The untouched savage in the middle of New Guinea isn't anxious; he is seriously and continually frightened --of black magic~, of enemies with spears who may kill him or his wives and children at any moment, while they stoop to drink from a spring, or climb a palm tree for a coconut. He goes warily, day and night, taut and fearful.

As for the peasant populations of a great part of the world, they aren't so much anxious as hungry. They aren't anxious about whether they will get a salary raise, or which of the three colleges of their choice they will be admitted to, or whether to buy a Ford or Cadillac, or whether the kind of TV set they want is too expensive. They are hungry, cold and, in many parts of the world, they dread that local warfare, bandits, political coups may endanger their homes, their meager livelihoods, and their lives. But surely they are not anxious.

For anxiety, as we have come to use it to describe our characteristic state of mind, can be contrasted with the active fear of hunger, loss, violence, and death. Anxiety is the appropriate emotion when the immediate personal terror --of a volcano, an arrow, the sorcerer's~ spell, a stab in the back and other calamities, all directed against one's self--disappears.

This is not to say that there isn't plenty to worry about in our world of today. The explosion of a bomb in the streets of a city whose name no one had ever heard before may set in motion forces which end up by ruining one's carefully planned education in law school, half a world away. But there is still not the personal, immediate, active sense of impending~ disaster that the savage knows. There is rather the vague anxiety, the sense that the future is unmanageable.

The kind of world that produces anxiety is actually a world of relative safety, a world in which no one feels that he himself is facing sudden death. Possibly sudden death may strike a certain number of unidentified other people -- but not him. The anxiety exists as an uneasy state of mind, in which one has a feeling that something unspecified and undeterminable may go wrong. If the world seems to be going well, this produces anxiety -- for good times may end. If the world is going badly -- it may get worse. Anxiety tends to be without focus; the anxious person doesn't know whether to blame himself or other people. He isn't sure whether it is 1956 or the Administration or a change in climate or the atom bomb that is to blame for this undefined sense of unease.

It is clear that we have developed a society which depends on having th eright amount of anxiety to make it work. Psychiatrists have been heard to say, "He didn't have enough anxiety to get well," indicating that, while we agree that too much anxiety is inimical to mental health, we have come to rely on anxiety to push and prod us into seeing a doctor about a symptom which may indicate cancer, into checking up on that old life-insurance policy which may have out-of-date clauses in it, into having a conference with Billy's teacher even though his report card looks all right.

People who are anxious enough keel their car insurance up. have the brakes checked I don't take a second drink when they have to drive, are careful where they go and with whom they drive on holidays. People who are too anxious either refuse to go into cars at all -- and so complicate the ordinary course of life -- or drive so tensely and overcautiously that they help cause accidents. People who aren't anxious enough take chance after chance, which increases the terrible death toll of the roads.

On balance, our age of anxiety represents a large advance over savage and peasant cultures. Out of a productive system of technology drawing upon enormous resources, we have created a nation in which anxiety has replaced terror and despair, for all except the severely disturbed. The specter of hunger means something only to those Americans who can identify themselves with the millions of hungry people on other continents. The specter of terror may still be roused in some by a knock at the door in a few parts of the South. or in those who have just escaped from a totalitarian regime or who have kin still behind the Curtains.

But in this twilight~ world which is neither at peace nor at war, and where there is insurance against certain immediate, downright, personal disasters, for most Americans there remains only anxiety over what may happen, might happen. could happen.

This is the world out of which grows the hope, for the first time in his story, of a society where there will be freedom from want and freedom from fear. Our very anxiety is born of our knowledge of what is now possible for each and for all. The number of people who consult psychiatrists today is not. as is sometimes felt, a symptom of increasing mental iii health, but rather the precut sot of a world in which the hope of genuine mental health will be open to everyone, a world in which no individual feels that be need be hopelessly broken hearted, a failure, a menace to others or a traitor to himself.

But if, then, our anxieties are actually signs of hope, why is there such a voice of discontent abroad in the land? I think this comes perhaps because our anxiety exists without an accompanying recognition Of the tragedy which will always be inherent in human life. however well we build our world. We may banish hunger, and fear of sorcery, violence, or secret police; we may bring up children who have learned to trust life and who have the spontaneity and curiosity necessary to devise ways of making trips to the moon; we cannot as we have tried to do -- banish death itself.

Americans who stem from generations which left their old people behind and never closed their parents' eyelids in death, and who have experienced the additional distance from death provided by two world wars fought far from our shores are today pushing away from them both a recognition of death and are cognition of the tremendous significance -- for the future -- of the way we live our lives. Acceptance of the inevitability of death, which, when faced, can give dignity to life. and acceptance of our inescapable role in the modern world, might transmute~ our anxiety about making the right choices, taking the right precautions, and the right risks into the sterner stuff of responsibility, which ennobles the whole face rather than furrowing~ the forehead With the little anxious wrinkles of worry.

Worry in an empty context means that men die daily little deaths. But good anxiety -- not about the things that were left undone long ago, but which return to haunt and hardy men's minds, but active, vivid anxiety about what must be done and that quickly binds men to life with an intense concern.

This is still a world in which too many of the wrong things happen somewhere. But this is a world in which we now have the means to make a great many more of the right things happen everywhere. For Americans, the generalization which a Swedish social scientist made about our attitudes on race relations is true in many other fields: anticipated change which we feel is right and necessary but difficult makes us unduly anxious and apprehensive, but such change, once consummated, brings a glow of relief. We are still a people who -- in the literal sense -- believe in making good.

#One Vote for This Age of Anxiety by Margaret Mead #One Vote for This Age of Anxiety #Margaret Mead #Age of Anxiety #Anxiety #A Selection of Modern English Prose #Prof. Sajjad Shaikh

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bakubunny · 5 months

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twelve days of kinkmas: a little tradition (1)

part 2

a/n: starting the month with a little bakugo fluff. was gonna do aizawa smut first, but @neon-gothicc inspired this with her denki fic so here u go i hope u like it friend.

pairing: bakugou katsuki x f!reader

prompt: mistletoe

tags: pro!bakusquad, mention of alcohol, katsuki has anxiety, shy!reader, first kiss

see the prompts and join the fun here

If his plan didn’t work, Denki was a dead man. He knew that much. It was early December, and Eijiro and Mina were hosting the first holiday party of the year. After telling them his idea weeks ago when they’d announced the party, Mina had a mischievous twinkle in her eyes and Eijiro was all stupid romantic grins at the thought.

As the couple got decor in place, setting out food and drink for the event, Denki helped set up decorations by hanging things that were a little too high for Mina to reach on her own. When everything was ready and the clock struck seven, people slowly began trickling in as the party started.

Katsuki walked in the front door after Sero. He looked around the room, not noticing much at first. Then he saw it, and turned around to walk out. Sero grabbed him by the coat and pulled him back in.

“Oh, no Bakubro. You dipped on every holiday party last year. You’re staying,” he said.

Denki, the little fucker he is, hung a sprig of mistletoe over every single doorway in the apartment that Katsuki could see. The two blonde men locked eyes, one with a glare and the other a nervous smile.

Yeah, he was a dead man.

‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊ ♡ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙·̩̩̥͙*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ♡ ‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊

You were in the main living area where most everyone was gathered aside from him and a few others playing a game of some kind, looking like a dream, and Katsuki didn’t know how to handle himself. He couldn’t pull his eyes from the pretty red nail polish that complimented your outfit. It resonated in his head, the way you laughed so genuinely at every one of Sero’s stupid jokes as you sat near him. He felt like he was going to be sick. At some point, Katsuki caught your eyes glancing at the doorways once you’d noticed the first one, but you’d seemed unphased.

Of course she doesn’t care, you fucking idiot, he thought. You’re the only one who’s bothered by it.

As the night dwindled on, every once in a while people would “follow tradition,” giving chaste kisses to their significant other.

He’d hardly spent time with you at all. Truthfully, he didn’t have the courage to.

You’d been on his mind for years, little bits of banter going back and forth as you worked at the front desk of the agency. But he never had the courage to ask you out on a date. It felt stupid; Katsuki had all the confidence and smooth talk in the world when he’d first become a hero, knew just what to say to charm the pants off of any person he wanted to fuck. Then he met you three years ago, and it all came to a screeching halt. His stomach got tight, his mouth went dry. He’d fumble things in his hands for no reason, feel his cheeks heat up whenever you spoke to him. He fucking hated it. His friends never shut up on it, either.

Katsuki noticed there was no one in the main entryway to the dining room where snacks and drinks were displayed, so he took his chance and managed to get through the entrance and then to the bathroom unscathed. He slumped down onto the toilet and started at the floor for a long moment. Red, tired eyes looked back at him when he got up to wash his hands.

“I should just fucking leave. Don’t wanna be here anyway,” he mumbled to himself.

Another knot tightly wound itself in his gut.

It was too loud. Everyone was getting drunk. And tonight, he just didn’t care. He knew his friends must have something up their sleeve, convinced that he gives a single fuck about you when he’s told them time and again that, no, he doesn’t. That they need to butt the hell out of his love life. Because if he were to admit to them that he did, they’d only get worse.

Katsuki also knew that if he ended up under the mistletoe with you, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold himself back.

“Just talk to him, honey!” Mina said quietly with a smile. “Or go take his seat. That’ll start something.”

Your face flared with heat; you’d been debating on approaching Katsuki all night. He looked miserable sitting across the room, but was engaged in other conversation for the most part.

“No, you’re crazy,” you replied.

You stood up and went to grab a glass of water from the dining area. Denki called out as you walked away.

“Hey, wait, can you get me-”

You ran into a wall of muscle with your head turned back to look the other way. Katsuki stood in front of you seemingly dumbfounded and not having noticed you either.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry!”

“‘S fine, you okay?” he asked quietly.

“Kiiiiiss,” Sero shouted from across the room.

“Yeah, it’s tradition. You have to, bad luck if you don’t,” Denki quipped.

One look up and sure enough, you were smack under the entryway.

You stepped back with a nervous laugh and met Katsuki’s gaze. “N-no, it’s okay.”

“C’mon, just a little peck,” Eijiro said.

Katsuki watched your cheeks flush, and the words came out of his idiot mouth before he could stop them.

“Dunceface is right, y’know. Tradition’s tradition,” he mumbled.

With a smile and a sigh, you relented. You pushed onto your toes to reach Katsuki’s cheek and kissed him. As you pulled away, two large hands grabbed your face. Katsuki kissed you hard enough to knock the air out of your lungs.

The sudden uproar of noise in the room faded in Katsuki’s head as he kissed you once, twice, and again. His heart hammered in his chest. By the second and third one, you were kissing him back. He almost couldn’t believe it.

For once, he thought, Dunceface had a pretty good idea.

sorry i forgot to add the tag list 🤦‍♀️

if you’d like to be added to my tag list, let me know. ♡

gremlins: @callm3senpaii @arlerts-angel @dcsiremc @darkstarlight82 @bookcluberror @neon-gothicc @zazter-den @breadandbutter33 @i-literally-cant-with-this @she-who-writes-for-multi-fandoms @rinalouu @stvrfir3 @r4td0lll @emmab3mma @aria-chikage @mhadabiandhawks4eva @yazminetrahan @doumadono @dreamcastgirl99 @maddietries @jazzafayesworld @karebear5118 @unofficialmuilover @cherriluvs35 @erensslut @ruu-https @hana-yuri @keiva1000 @katsul0vr @trickster-kat @ayeohoh-blog @dinomeow @flamgosstuff @mistressreaper @angelltheninth @anonymously-ominous @amberexe2 @hisconsistency @nanamisbigassschlong @223princess @pastelbakugou @gold24fish

#idk if i like this but it gave me fluffy feels so 🤷‍♀️#it’s giving slight ‘michael in the bathroom’ vibes #if u haven’t heard that song i like it a lot but it’s completely unrelated to this #I hc katsuki as someone who’s got a fuck ton of anxiety and self hate under all that anger #maybe it’s incorrect but it feels right #bnha fluff #mha fluff #bakugou fluff #Bakugo fluff #bakugou katsuki #bakugo katuski #bakugou x reader #x reader #bakubunny #f!reader #kinkmas 2023 #fluffmas 2023 #aged up characters

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