I mostly just got older and therefore calmer. I’ve crossed off most of the highest-priority items from my bucket list, so while I would prefer to continue living for a good long while, my personal death and/or defeat doesn’t seem so catastrophically bad anymore, and to cope with the loss of civilization/humanity I read a lot of history and sci-fi and anthropology and other works that help me zoom out and see that there has already been great loss and that while I do want to spend my resources fighting to reduce the risk of that loss, it’s not something I need to spend a lot of time or energy personally suffering over, especially not in advance. Worry is interest paid on trouble before it’s due.
It’s been 15 years. Did you figure out how to be less scared?
I mostly just got older and therefore calmer. I’ve crossed off most of the highest-priority items from my bucket list, so while I would prefer to continue living for a good long while, my personal death and/or defeat doesn’t seem so catastrophically bad anymore, and to cope with the loss of civilization/humanity I read a lot of history and sci-fi and anthropology and other works that help me zoom out and see that there has already been great loss and that while I do want to spend my resources fighting to reduce the risk of that loss, it’s not something I need to spend a lot of time or energy personally suffering over, especially not in advance. Worry is interest paid on trouble before it’s due.