Stress

Stress:  Emotional distress suffered by a human or other animal.  (Ed. Note: I like how humans are grouped in with the animals.  We're really just big, fancy animals).

"We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves."

That's a great line from The Book.  It's a line that details a very real but often overlooked fact of life as a big animal.  People under a lot of stress are prone to illness and depression.  It can be stress dictated by circumstances outside of our selves and it can arise from internal battles between we, ourselves, and us.

I find that when I'm stressed about something bigger than pretty small that I let a lot of pretty small things become big.  I've got a big thing on my mind right now that's stressing me a little so I find that weird, little things are jumping and hopping all over my brain.  For instance, in my first house, I got a notion in my head that there were termites afoot.  I have no idea why.  I don't know what termite damage would look like so I certainly can't point to something and say: "Hey.  Termites." But there they were, devouring my house cellulose fiber by cellulose fiber.

Eventually, I dug out the root cause of the stress and dealt with it.  Voila!  No more termites.