Paranoia
A Universal Equalizer
It is 8AM in London. Six hours before and it was 8AM in parts of Asia. In six hours, it will be 8AM in the United States. 8AM has a universal quality that seems to mean business, certainly during the week. Once awake and functionally cognitive, 8AM means choices to be made. For breakfast the question becomes, “eggs and toast, or no toast?” Why no toast? Are you worried about weight gain? Caffeine presents the next predicament; do you indulge in a cup of coffee, or skip the risk of marring the first interaction of your day with yellow teeth and stinking breath? Perhaps a smoothie would make a healthy breakfast, but do you add chia seeds or not? Regardless of your place in the social strata, nothing is worse than a black speck of protein-packed seed wedged maliciously in-between two teeth for all to see.
This subconscious self-policing is the first indicator of the universality of paranoia. Given that you avoid the implications of a food-in-the-tooth incident – the worry about whether or not someone will take pity and alert you to the chia seed, or the equally tragic struggle to tell someone else there is something in their teeth – the paranoia surrounding impressions continue in step with your morning routine. Now you must decide what to wear. Is this outfit too sexy? If you’re a working professional you wouldn’t want to risk not being taken seriously – a societally justified paranoia – and if you’re a student, god forbid you are dress-coded or looked down upon by a professor. If you have a uniform you’re ahead of the game, but make sure it is in impeccable condition. Deviations from the norm are bound to invoke their own paranoias. Departing from the privacy of your home, these trivial choices with paranoid undertones take a more collective form. One need not be a historian to be familiar with the dangers of public transportation. If you are an Uber patron, or even privileged enough to have a private hire car at your disposal, there is always the risk of some manic driver being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Now unless you’re terribly unlucky, most manage to survive well past 8AM and endure all their other concerns for the day. These concerns may seem petty, but they are not dismissible. The consequences of our actions, especially relating to how we are perceived by other people, generate universal paranoia. Not many things in life unify drastically different people as powerfully as paranoia does. Appearances, judgements, and coping mechanisms may vary from individual to individual, but no amount of money or fame provides immunity from the paranoia of inadequacy or potential embarrassment. In their own way, people seem compelled to obsessively police themselves. Social pressures act as an omnipresent spotlight that has its rays shining on any potential flaw or insecurity an individual may have. Perpetuated by overthinking possible judgements or dreaded interactions, every 8AM decision has its paranoid baggage. The weight of this baggage seems to be a universal human equalizer.
