The At some point in your life, you're going to have to wait for news that is very important to you personally.

News where, depending on the answer, you can imagine your life splitting in two different directions,

the direction you really want,

and the direction you really don't. I had this happen recently. There was an uncertain,

scary medical event, and I did not handle it the way I would have liked. I got obsessive,

I got neurotic.

I found myself constantly seeking information,

even though there was no real information to find.

I was ravenously scrolling obscure subreddits,

basically harassing chat GPT,

trying to puzzle through research papers that, frankly, I had no business trying to understand.

I had this delusion, which was that information was going to give me control.

Information would calm my worries.

Instead, it was feeding my worries.

It was spiraling me out.

It was helping me lose control of the one thing I possibly could still have controlled, my own mind.

The episode in my life resolved.

Things turned out fine.

And then just a week later, I read this book.

It was a memoir called Second Life.

And it was about someone not an identical, but in some ways a similar circumstance.

The writer had been pregnant, the time in people's lives marked by lots of worry and uncertainty,

...