It seems to me that many if not most parents–at least in our culture, but this is probably common around the world, at least now–feel the same anxieties their children do. They worry, just as children worry, but they learn to hide it, at least from their children, as well as they can.
True maturity, it seems to me, is stable acceptance of both life and death as they are presented to us, with death being merely the last and most puzzling aspect of life.
This means accepting that the NATURE of life is imperfect information, which results in confusion and doubt among sane people. We don’t know the future. We don’t even really know the present or past, as they truly happened and are happening.
The psychological value of manias and unwarranted certitudes is obvious. It builds a stable place for the mind, one which–while disconnected from the world as it is–allows cessation of doubt and confusion for a time, sometimes a long time, and not infrequently a life.
Religion does that for people. But I think most religions constitute in some ways a shelter from life as it exists. All religions, I think, teach some form of living in the moment, and being present to experience, but it is the laws and rules and orders and commandments and stable ontologies which most people focus on and remember.
Every morning all of us get on a train whose destination we don’t really know. Most days it seems to travel an arc and bring us back to the same station. But if you look, it is not really the same station. It changes. The people we meet there change too, and if we were to look in a mirror, we too would find subtle alterations. Every day.
All I can say is that for myself I am trying to learn to lean into the sun, to lean into experience, to not avoid or shy away from it. Some of it will enrapture me, some hurt me, but all of it can be worked into growth.
And the end aim of growth is a stable peace, a stable sense of wonder, and an ability to negotiate lifes ups and downs without undue anxiety. If you hide, you have to live in fear and doubt forever.