Reverberations from Jupiter's Black Spot

As the denizens of Edwin A. Abbott's, Famous Novel, Flatland must have harbored a fear of depth, and the great Comedian, Steven Wright proclaimed, A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths; I too share Similar Anxieties although they run to the Grand Scale.

Not kidding....When it comes to Run-Out-of -the -Room Panic, I put my money on the Thought that the Universe is Expanding!

Expanding into what? Not being a Religious Man, I can't brush it off with a Good Parable or take it on faith. Even Religious types, do they worry that it may be expanding into Heaven, and perhaps" taking their spot".

This leads to this weeks remarkable discovery that a comet slammed into Jupiter and produced this massive Gash. I was OK with this...No Asteroid slamming into Earth and extinguishing all Life as we know it.

Then they just had to mention that the divot produced in Jupiter was the size of the Pacific Ocean! If you look at the Hubble Images this gash the size of Earth's largest Ocean was comparable to a Comet hitting the Earth and taking out Los Angeles (which admittedly wouldn't be all bad) or the Isle of Wight ...but I digress.

I tried to read the NYT article, Jupiter,our cosmic Protector? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/weekinreview/26overbye.html ,

to my 11 tear old son and he soon almost hysterically begged me to stop. Not his cup of tea either, I guess.

So this anxiety is either hereditary, or something Bigger. I believe it is an Existential Issue and as Woody Allen and myself ,would tell you, these Existential Wet Blankets are the Source of the "Big Fear".

In my Psychiatric Residency at the University of Virginia, other than the Neuroscience, I was most influenced by a book by Irving Yalom. In his book, Existential Psychotherapy, Yalom (1980), he organized the breadth of existential theory into four major themes: 1) Death, 2) Freedom (& Responsibility), 3) Isolation, and 4) Meaninglessness. According to Yalom, these four existential realities are the root of most psychological problems and have no ultimate answers.

I would still agree.