Catastrophism

October 25th

I made fun of my brother last week. Not to his face, of course, I love him dearly and wouldn’t want him to feel bad or self-conscious. It was about his catastrophism — when any situation that is even a slight degree out of ordinary or unlike what he expects — he tends to imagine and actually believe that it will lead to the most unlikely and catastrophic and tragic outcome.

For example — my sister and my brother-in-law are moving next week. The new apartment is in an amazing location, but rather on a small scale by the flat area. On the other hand, it is cheap for the location. On yet another hand my sister is pregnant and there will be a newborn there in January. On the other hand again, this apartment will be cozy for this new family. And on the last hand — they already have a dog and a cat and it will be a tight squeeze.

For my brother all that will end in disaster, there will be not enough room for two adults and a baby and a cat and a dog. They will struggle to get any privacy or won’t have a proper place for the child to spend the first months of being alive. The dog and the cat will suffer as well because there is so little space for them. My sister and her husband will argue and that will lead to potential marital problems. They haven’t moved there yet and haven’t lived there for one day and my brother already made up his mind that it will end up badly!

Sometimes all that catastrophism is pretty funny, especially when seen in others. And in my family, it seems like this is a favorite pastime to imagine and believe in any, no matter how far-fetched potentially disastrous outcome. But then I see myself doing exactly the same and it is not so funny anymore… And I spent a weekend when every other thought in my head was about more and more fantastically disastrous things to happen to me. There is nothing funny about that.