Grandiose delusion can temporarily eliminate felt anxiety

Evidence

For over a week, I had a state of mind where all things were possible. I felt the laws of nature could be defied…. I will one day have a mind superior to JFK’s and maybe of anyone ever. This, I feel, is a conservative goal. One key to such development is to be my own master of learning. There is going to be a surge of development in Pat like this world has never seen before in any individual. Perhaps I will never need the official platform of the Presidency. Perhaps pen, paper, and lectures will be sufficient. As it is right now, the only thing preventing me from becoming President is the prejudice of the voters. I will no doubt be the man best qualified to handle the job. I feel it will just be a matter of going through the motions. I feel no pressure. I feel no anxiety. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 682

Categorization

• BMF: Pat’s conviction that he will one day command the universe by sheer self-mastery evokes Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, where the protagonist’s own rationalizing self-narration slides toward delusional grandiosity.
• XREF: connects to: FOMO drives compulsive checking that worsens, not relieves, anxiety — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1474