LWSJ Is Smarter Than Me

Worry: To be troubled, to give way to mental anxiety.

Several years ago - when we were younger and dumber - Little Westside Jonny and I took a trip to Ecuador.  It wasn't the going to Ecuador that was a dumb idea but rather our decision to make a three day junket into the Amazon jungle using what turned out to be a bare-bones tour company.  It was one of those trips where you fly up and over the Andes before landing on a small air strip hacked out of the encroaching bush - I still remember how ridiculous our big jet looked on that rudimentary landing strip; hop a rickety, jarring jeep with no discernible shock absorbers for a few hours more, including a lengthy delay while a bunch of teenagers in military fatigues sporting machine guns went over our documents and through our luggage; then blast down a narrow tributary in a motorized canoe for a few hours more, hanging vines winging by at eye level and at high speed.

One night we watched the sun set in our skiffs on a shallow lake.  As we made our way home in the dusk we passed a series of small islands choked in vegetation.  The jungle insects had begun to emit their ghostly whine, sounding vaguely electronic in tone.  The bugs around our huts were so loud that I had to stuff cotton in my ears in an attempt to drown them out.

Out of nowhere LWSJ asks: "Would you spend the night on that island for a million dollars?"

I didn't hesitate: "Absolutely," I said.  A million dollars is a lot of money.  In fact, I began to back the figure down to see if I could get to a more reasonable number.  I assured him that I would do it for $250,000 and I believe I got down as low as $50,000.  I explained how I would clear the brush from around the base of a small tree with a branch that I could sit on - avoiding anything that might be crawling or slithering around on the ground - before beginning to hoot and yell the rest of the night to scare off anything larger.

"You're insane," he stated flatly.

"A million dollars," I said.  "You couldn't handle the physical discomfort for a million dollars?"

"There is no amount of money on this earth that would convince me to stay on that island for one night," he replied.

"And it's not the physical part that worries me," he added.  "It's the mental part.  I'd have to be taken off in a straight jacket the next morning."

You know I get what he's saying.  The worrying about something, the anxiety that the worrying causes, is always much worse than the thing I'm worrying about.

Maybe not on one of those jungle islands, come to think of it, but most of the time.