Stress

Posted on 22 December 2009

Ya know, stress is one of those things that just annoys me.  Of course, I’d imagine that would make the personification of stress rather happy, but still.  It ranks right up there to me with regret on the annoyance scale though because, honestly, it doesn’t help a single thing, but it can come from so many.  Stress can come from your job.  It can come from your personal life.  It can also come from the megalomaniac villain trying to destroy your planet.

And yet, you really sit down and think about it, and the sheer realization of how the stress of situations should affect a person are never directly expressed in a lot of writing.  Yes, people crack under pressure, or show anger, but it is always in a second-hand sort of way.  You don’t hear about the random panic attack that blind sides them out of nowhere.  You don’t hear about strange shortnesses of breath and exhaustions out of nothing.  No, the direct effects of stress are glossed over, and we get the next layer.

Why?  Well, I’d imagine part of it is the author not wanting to feel that his or herself.  I can’t speak for every author, but I can tell you, whatever my characters go through, I feel.  When I write it, it is real for me too.  I write about my character thinking his wife has betrayed him and left him for dead, my heart feels stabbed.  I write about an addict who is jonsing for a fix, my hands get the shakes.  So, why on this green Earth would I want to give myself the effects of hideous high stress?

Still, it seems like authors, myself included, could actually bring up the direct effects of stress more.  You don’t face world-threatening situations with only a slightly ill temper and maybe some heartburn. Alas, not ever hero is (or should be) Jack Bauer.

And to the real life part of stress, yes, I hate it. Who doesn’t?  It never helps you solve a problem, and in the end only feeds itself because the problem is all that harder to solve.  And yet, we still feel it, even certain bartender friends of mine who deny it.  So, what can I say? Have a beer and find some friends to help you laugh.  It doesn’t fix the problem, but it helps in an indirect way by giving a break from that back-muscle-killing, stomach-upsetting, sleep-depriving stress.