So great is the need of our lower nature to feel itself as being "important" that when it can't find some unwanted event seen as a threat to its fictitious position in life, then it simply imagines -- on the spot -- whatever conditions it needs to feel as if something vital is at risk. And, as incredible as it seems, it uses this self-created state of tension and anxiety -- a pain that pushes it from pillar to post -- to prove to itself just how important it really is.