"And the Vogons came and destroyed it five minutes before the program was completed," added Arthur, not unbitterly. "Yes," said the old man, pausing to gaze hopelessly around the room. "Ten million years of planning and work gone just like that. Ten million years, Earthman, can you conceive of that kind of time span? A galactic civilization could grow from a single worm five times over in that time. Gone." He paused. "Well, that's bureaucracy for you," he added.
"You know," said Arthur thoughtfully, "all this explains a lot of things. All through my life I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was."
"No," said the old man, "that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that."
"Everyone?" said Arthur. "Well, if everyone has that perhaps it means something! Perhaps somewhere outside the Universe we know . . ."
It's very easy to fall into the trap of paranoia, as Arthur does here. It's that feeling that someone, or something, in the Universe has it in for you. That you are the target of some overarching plan of which you have no idea. If you buy into this viewpoint, that's when you start worrying about the guy parked across the street from your house, white buds firmly implanted in his ears. He's not the grandson of your 87-year-old neighbor. He's some kind of government agent, listening to the goings-on in your household.
Or the paranoia could be a little more cosmic. That you have done something so terrible that the Creator has it in for you. That everything you attempt will fail--no raises, no new jobs. Your kids start getting into trouble at school. Your love relationships start going south. Sickness. Money problems. Mental health issues. If you're in a paranoia, all of these struggles are part of a larger plan aimed at you. You're like an ant under God's magnifying glass, slowly cooking in the sun.
Of course, the Universe doesn't quite work that way, and neither does God. At least not my God. Yes, the Universe is a broken place. Humanity is broken. Because of freewill, we can make bad choices, and those bad choices mess things up even more. For example, the citizens of the United States made a really bad choice for President of the United States two years ago. Now, the entire planet is paying for this choice and has been since Donald Trump stepped into the Oval Office. Bad choice, bad consequences.
But things like cancer or bipolar or addiction are not choices people would make for themselves. No, these are terrible diseases and disorders that simply are part of a person's genetic makeup, sometimes triggered by the place or situation in which a person lives. Fathers get liver cancer. Mothers undergo mania. Children fall into drug or alcohol addiction. It happens. It's not part of some divine system of justice. It simply happens. It's part of the broken world in which we live.
I remind myself of this fact every day. Sometimes several times a day. And I try to make good choices in response to my struggles. Healthy choices. Choices rooted in grace and prayer and reflection. It's not always easy.
Today, I make the choice not to live in worry. In an hour or so, I will be playing the pipe organ at church. Before I sit on the organ bench, I will say a prayer, hand my problems over to God, and then make music. Joyful, happy sounds. Thanking God for all the blessings He sent my way today that I might not have noticed. (Aside from paranoia, humans--myself included--tend to have tunnel vision. We only look ahead, without taking note of the miracle of the trillium blooming right in our own backyard.)
Today, I'm trying to turn away from paranoia and worry. It's sort of like picking the petals off a daisy--I'm crazy, I'm crazy not, I'm paranoid, I'm paranoid not . . .
Saint Marty's going to just keep picking . . .
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