OPINION

Emotions forecast: anxious

It was probably a mistake to read Psychology Today while my husband was watching The Weather Channel. He's absorbed by a story focused on the world's most extreme weather and I'm reading an article about how to avoid toxic colleagues at parties.

My husband has the advantage: He and his fellow meteorologists (isn't every man who watches The Weather Channel a meteorologist?) can see the future through the magical yet scientific power of Doppler radar. I'm stuck with a quiz asking if I need salty snacks and/or alcoholic beverages in order not to run screaming out of the room when co-workers approach me at a party.

After more about floods, tornadoes and erosion, I decide that what I need is the equivalent of Doppler effect radar for my emotional life. I want to know what's ahead for the next 24 hours and I want to be offered a 10-day outlook. In addition, I'd like to be reminded of my historic highs and lows for this time of year to know whether my mood this week is going to set any kind of record.

I want this information provided by a well-dressed professional--flanked by cheerfully colored quasi-scientific diagrams and models--who, with undiminished poise and equanimity, will alert me to bright, sunny days or the immediate need to evacuate using only designated emergency routes.

These professionals would receive their information from a national Institute of Mood Safety, and they would keep us up-to-date with First Alerts and Early Warnings: "After an unsettled and humid night, expect a morning of mixed emotions, with anger gusts sweeping in right before lunch."

Since weather is getting so unnervingly local that we'll soon be able to tell not only whether raindrops will be falling on our heads but whether they'll fall on our elbows or on our left foot or our right foot, I would hope that our moods could be traced with the same exactitude.

I want to know if there's going to be a downpour of sentiment, a drought of generosity, a mix of sun and clouds causing buyer's remorse and whether there are going to be mood swings coming over the mountains when they come. Is there a chance of a panic attack on Tuesday afternoon? I would like to know not only how to dress appropriately but what to postpone.

Finally, I'm not interested so much in tropical depressions as I am in topical depressions, which leads me to believe that we should also have a Doppler radar to predict what's going on politically. I believe I'm not the only one going through this: I could be having a genuinely lovely day, only to turn on the news and fall directly into the slough of despond.

"Who wants to be foretold the weather?" asks Jerome K. Jerome, one of my favorite humor writers. "It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand." But foretold can be forearmed. Perhaps we'll figure out how to protect ourselves against the winds of a changing political climate. Or perhaps we'll learn how to cope with a suddenly urgent sense of social anxiety. I'll break out the popchips.

Editorial on 05/22/2017

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