I remember the first time I read The Once and Future King, by T. H. White (if you haven't yet had the pleasure, you're in for a treat), and among his many keen insights into human nature, he observes that one character is less physically courageous than his brothers because he has a more vivid imagination - he can imagine painful and catastrophic outcomes more intensely, and this dampens his will to jump into the fight.
Well, ain't that a kick in the head, as Dino used to sing. Once again, everything has its price. You want to have the gift of imagination? Fine; sign here, please. You've just agreed to lay awake at four in the morning in a state of dread a certain number of nights throughout the course of your life, and the joke is that 1) most of what you are panicking about won't even take place, and 2) the pain of whichever calamities actually DO occur won't be lessened by your anticipatory agony. AT ALL.
It's interesting for me to look back on the days when I used to do hallucinogens, and there would often be someone with me on the trip who would start to flip out; since my psyche seemed to tolerate these kinds of chemicals better than some, I wound up being one of the people who helped talk them down. And of course, one of the most common strategies was to calmly point out, "don't panic - you're going to be okay; you took a drug a few hours ago, and the drug is going to wear off in a few more hours. In the meantime, we're all here with you and we'll help you keep it together."
So, what's the strategy for talking someone down who's freaking out on life? Is it, "you're going to be okay; you were born into a physical body a while back, but it'll wear out eventually and you'll be back on the spiritual plane"?
That COULD work, I guess.
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