Knowing the Difference Between a RollerCoaster and a Cable Car

Imagine strapping yourself in to what you believe to be a smooth cablecar ride to the top of a picturesque mountain. You’ve got your phone ready to take some shots, and you’re looking forward to the slowly shrinking city below you as you sip your latte, and prepare yourself for the vista at the top on a balmy spring day.

Next minute, you’re being flung all over the place and at an increasingly rapid pace: left, right, up, down, up, right, right, right, LEFT, DOWN! Your coffee is all over you, your hair is in your mouth and your stomach is about twenty feet away and disappearing rapidly as you hit another right and up. And then the nausea hits. How did I end up here? SCREAM! Will this thing ever end? YELL! What happened to my cable car? CLING! What you thought had been a cable car ride turns out to have been a rollercoaster. Why were you not told? Why were you not given time to prepare?

Welcome to how it feels to live in the modern West today. We are experiencing a period of rapid discontinuous change, a time in which the future is less certain than we may have thought thirty years ago. All of the old categories feel, well, feel old! No sooner is a leader elected than they are on the nose.

Just when you thought you had a handle on technology something comes along - such as AI - that unnerves you. Is my job safe? And the fracturing of any type of consensus! Whether it be moral or political or cultural, no sooner have we affirmed one thing than we are being than we are being commanded to reject it. Buy a Tesla and save the planet? That was so 2020! Burn a Tesla and save the planet!

All jokes aside, there is a level of cultural nausea being experienced in the Western world as we negotiate the instability of so much change and so many directional shifts. While cartoons like The Jetsons back in the early 1960s pitched a vision of the future in which robot maids did all the work, life in the city was safe and shiny, hover-cars whisked us to and fro, and family life was taken up with major decisions such as leisure pursuits, that is not how the future is turning out!

The myth of progress is not so much a myth, as an increasing nightmare for many people. Climate, housing, war, job loss, social media algorithms, cultural and social polarisation (are you feeling nauseous yet?). When it comes to mental health in the West, we are not simply seeing a spike in individual anxiety, we are witnessing a societal anxiety that threatens to push us to extreme positions. We no longer view those who differ to us politically or culturally as wrong or unintelligent, but as bad or uncaring.

In his recent book, The Anxious Generation, New York psychologist and academic, Jonathan Haidt, anchors the rise of anxiety among younger generations to the now-universal adoption of the smart-phone around 2011. He believes that the way in which the world is mediated - especially to young people - through social media and constant online sources of information, has dialled up the anxieties that were already there, and added a few for good measure.

Now while Haidt, in this book, is convinced that the world is not as bad as social media would portray, elsewhere he states that deep divisions in the West have come about in politics, and much of that is to do with the rapid changes we are experiencing. We don’t know what’s coming next. Is it hard right? Some of the signs suggest so. Is it crazy left? Others would say that this is our problem.

Whatever the direction we view as the problem, the reality is that we have no clear line of sight as to where we are going. It’s clearly not to the top of that cable car mountain and its stunning vista. Which means it’s rollercoaster for some time yet.

Another term for this rapid change we experience in the West is “liquid modernity”. It’s a great term, and just another way to say that things are not as stable as they once were. And while it’s fine to rejoice or celebrate change, especially if you have the financial and social capital to lean into it, most of us in the West are not so fortunate.

So what do we do? Hide away? But ten acres in the hills and build a compound and wait for the Zombie Apocalypse? Isolationism has its own issues, indeed the so called “loneliness epidemic” that we are experiencing is part of what is leading to our anxieties.

Now, if you are suffering personal anxiety, then booking in with a therapist is a good idea. Indeed that’s one of the major strings we have at Life To The Full. Our clinicians are well-trained, and while all are aligned with the Christian faith, we honour whatever spiritual view - even if it’s none - that our clients hold.

Our aim is to help you deal with the personal rollercoaster you have found yourself on. And if it’s not possible to switch it out to a cable car, at least to give you strategies for the ride that will dial down the nausea and give you a sense of where things might be going.

But the real strength of Life To The Full is our commitment to the stabilising truths found in the ancient texts of the Old Testament. In the songbook called Psalms, we read these words:

Why do the nations conspire
    and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth rise up
    and the rulers band together
    against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,

 “Let us break their chains
    and throw off their shackles.”

The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
    the Lord scoffs at them.

The writer of this song sees chaos in the world and a direct challenge towards his life - and the life of his people - from all sorts of external threats. But his solution is not to hide. Nor is it to grab at personal power or revenge. Instead he puts his trust in the God who sits above both the rollercoaster and the cable car.

The idea of God enthroned in heaven is not meant to relay God’s distance from what is going on below, as if he were watching a colony of ants destroy themselves far below. But rather it highlights his overarching concern for what is going on, and his ability to manage it.

While rapid discontinuous change has left us languishing, God is not perturbed by it. In fact, those who trust in Him have a counter narrative to the anxiety we wrestle with, not just because he’s a God who is in control, but because he is a God who cares! Jesus called this game enthroned “One” our “Heavenly Father”. That’s a heady cocktail indeed - strong and loving at the same time.

So whether you are on a personal rollercoaster or you’re experiencing the cultural nausea of so much churn in the world, the God who sees the big picture, sees your small picture too. He’s with us on the wild ride - that is - after all - the point of the Easter season we are in, and all with the promise that one day and we will stand atop the mountain and enjoy the vista, free of the churn.