I pick up this notion from Zizek, in his
The courage of hopelessness. The compulsive reaction to some disrupting realities can be precisely this, to act, or to react, not to achieve something, but to avoid something to happen. Concentrating the attention on other subjets, and trying to not talk about what is most important. To impose oneself a big amount of tasks to not do the most important task: to face the real problems.