In an entropic world, when chaos and uncertainty are all around, people lacking a coping mentality gravitate towards overthinking – a state between thinking and action – making life worthless. Schopenhauer's 'all life is suffering' stands true in such a milieu. It disapproves of Leibnizian optimism that "ours is the best of all possible worlds."

In Voltaire's satirical novel Candide, Dr Pangloss swaggers that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." If God could have created a better one, surely he would have. So one will have to cope with whatever falls in one's way and then let the chips fall where they may.

Overthinking is also stimulated by the fear of social judgement and public failure. TS Eliot's Prufrock – the generic representation of modern man – is the epitome of inertia parented by overthinking. Shakespeare sculpted the character of Hamlet as the embodiment of collateral damage spurred by his overthinking.

All attention to our persona and recognition has made us hypercritical and self-doubting. A sort of........

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