so I had to go back to reading Adorno and the first thing I read is "Psychology knows that he who imagines disasters in some way desires them."
So this is hardly some outré idea I've dreamed up. As I said in the opening post it's absolutely fundamental to Ballard. Ditto the boredom with surfeit that permeates the west and the corresponding will to madness.
Adorno's full of shit.
There are people with anxiety disorders, depression, victims of trauma who are afflicted with negative automatic thoughts around the suffering of themselves and their loved ones.
The stoics advocated negative visualisation, or defensive pessimism as an essential coping mechanism to deal with the vicissitudes life. Aurelius tells us that "
When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …” a principle predicated on the possibility of disaster. Seneca says; "
Let us place before our eyes in its entirety the nature of man’s lot…not the kind of evil that often happens, but the very greatest evil that can possibly happen. We must reflect upon fortune fully and completely.” Buddha tells us to contemplating the suffering of others to awaken our compassion.
There is a whole world of thought around this outside the shallow interpretation presented here.