“This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. So it needs saying from the outset that it’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is. Especially if you have other people you’re trying to be a reasonably good human being for.”
As part of the opening statement, the narrator declares the characters idiots but as a general statement on the human condition. Fundamentally, we humans are mostly muddling through the so-called life and try to do our best to make the right choices amid the chaos – with limited success. The many variables that accumulate with each move make being human difficult especially when trying to get on everyone’s good side. Despite the awareness that no one entirely knows what they are doing, it hardly stops one from declaring another’s behavior idiotic. The mismatched strangers harbor their own anxieties that prompt them to act in a bizarre or idiotic manner. Case in point, our protagonist decides to rob a bank to pay the current rent arrears even though the decision is borderline senseless.
“The truth of course is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure”
Human beings are considerably prone to anxiety and in the modern world, it is heightened with the internet as the culprit. Social media has allowed us to have a glimpse into other people’s lives –either fabricated or not –thereby assures our fears about our accomplishments. In the statement, the bank robber deduces this reality in the digital age where anything can be constructed with every tool at our disposal. The internet lets for anyone to construct the reality they wish to project into the world rather than wait for it to unfold naturally. Though all and sundry are aware of this and even participate, it barely spares them from harboring anxieties while scrolling through the internet.
“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday.”
As the title suggests, the narrative is about anxious individuals; anxious about their present and future almost certainly due to their past. Not only has their past influenced their current situation but also the choices that continue to complicate their lives. With this in mind, there comes a time when a decision has to be made to detach from our past to construct a new self. The narrator asserts that the past could be a reason for this resolution but not the basis of our personality going forward. The characters have to convince themselves that they are more than their former choices in order to get past their mistakes.
