Anxiety and philosophy

[nhoeg]

Anxiety as an unpleasant emotional-feeling has always been with us humans. This state of inner turmoil and nervous behavior have made people think about it's nature since ancient times.

I want to start this thread in order for you guys to share and discuss your thoughts or studies about the nature of anxiety. Sure some of us drink kava or take prescriptions in order to deal with anxiety-symptoms - but it will never remove the roots causing the anxiety. I don't think it only requires phycological and cognitive skills to understand the root cause of our anxiety - philosophy can (at least for me) explain a lot.

Søren Kierkegaard, one of history's greatest philosophers, wrote about unfocused fear. He uses an example of a man standing on the edge of a tall building or cliff. When the man looks over the edge, he experiences a focused fear of falling, but at the same time, the man feels a terrifying impulse to throw himself intentionally off the edge. That experience is anxiety or dread because of our complete freedom to choose to either throw oneself off or to stay put. The mere fact that one has the possibility and freedom to do something, even the most terrifying of possibilities, triggers immense feelings of dread. He calls this the "dizziness of freedom". Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

The fact, that the only person who is responsible for own life is our selves - gives us anxiety - general anxiety. I think a lot of you can relate to the feeling of not being able to know why we feel so anxious. Kierkegaard, as an existenstialist, said that we need to choose in order to get rid of this anxiety. We need to make responsible choices for own lifes and seek our own path in life, whatever it is.

So, this was my first input on this philosophical anxiety discussion. There are a lot of exciting things to get to know or understand in this matter. I would love to see you guys come up with your own or others' thoughts.

I will end this post with a quote from Kierkegaard, again:

“Because it is possible to create — creating one’s self, willing to be one’s self… — one has anxiety. One would have no anxiety if there were no possibility whatever.".

 

[sumguy]

I am much more anxious about things beyond my control. Making choices on my part will not help with my worries about my children.

 

[verticity]

I don't know too much about Kierkergaard's philosophy, but I do know that he dd leap off that building, metaphorically, into Christianity. The "leap of faith". And apparently he was really about faith being a matter of struggling with oneself, rather than following the doctrine from a book or institution, or imposing one's belief's on others. That kind of introspection is very Nordic, it seems. Which is great, but could it be that too much introspection can lead to anxiety? I wonder what the incidence of anxiety disorders is in Nordic countries, compared to elsewhere.

This raises the question: can one reduce anxiety by changing one's philosophy, one's "attitude"? Or is anxiety more of just a physiological experience, like a combination of genetic predisposition and conditioning?

I guess I would define anxiety as counterproductive, chronic fear. Fear is our friend. It saves us from dangerous things. But when you are living in a constant state of irrational fear, that is anxiety.

 

[Deleted User01]

I will tell you a story sonny ... When I was a kid, I use to walk across this pipe (foot in diameter, 50 ft long) that was like a bridge over the creek. It might have been 15 feet below and falling would have been painful. One day, around the time I started puberty, I froze in the middle of the pipe. I had to straddle the pipe and inch my way across it. And from that day on, I could never cross that pipe as non chalantly as in the past. My guess is that I suddenly feared for my life and was no longer able to taunt death or harm anymore. It was now taunting me. So this anxiety was caused by a strong sense of self-preservation. @nhoeg, this kinda proves your point and it is something that I will never forget because it happened suddenly and without warning.

 

[verticity]

...When I was a kid, I use to walk across this pipe (foot in diameter, 50 ft long) that was like a bridge over the creek. ... One day, around the time I started puberty, I froze in the middle of the pipe. I had to straddle the pipe and inch my way across it. ...

Is that why you now have a "thing" for conduit pipes...?
Sorry.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

...When I was a kid, I use to walk across this pipe (foot in diameter, 50 ft long) that was like a bridge over the creek. ... One day, around the time I started puberty, I froze in the middle of the pipe. I had to straddle the pipe and inch my way across it. ...

Is that why you now have a "thing" for conduit pipes...?
Sorry.

 

[ta-va]

I don't like to think of myself as an anxious person but all kinds of (stupid!) anxieties seem to have taken ahold of me as I get older. Fear of flying in planes (I used to love them as a kid), fear of heights i.e. really high suspension bridges (I find it difficult to drive over them now - exacerbated by the car - I also find it difficult to walk over them). Being suspended over nothing is a problem but being on terra firma (like a cliff edge) is fine for heights. Again, I would put myself forward as the first to do an abseil off the side of a high up aquaduct as a kid (teen) without any fear. I'm not sure where all this anxiety is coming from. I think it's mostly a fear of mortality. I come to realise more and more as I get older that time is running out. It's like I'm avoiding any possibility of shortening that time but it's holding me back from stuff that would actually be rather life-afirming. I should also do well to heed my teachers' thoughts on shorter paragraphs

 

[ta-va]

Talking of conduit pipes, I smoked my first cigarette down in the concrete channel that suspended one of these pipey things across a stream. Three of us used to go down there because it was out of sight of teachers. Getting dizzy and kind of drunk on nicotine was a bad mistake because I knew I'd want more. Crossed that pipe without a care in the world for falling in the stream. Then reality hit (the rest of my 45 years) I was addicted to nicotine and there were no further thrills from it.

 

[avahZ]

Astroglide! When foreplay is not enough!

 

[Jonathan]

In my opinion, and it's only that - anxiety is directly proportional to unresolved issues. I control mine by doing my best to stay on top of whatever needs to be resolved each day, whether it's work deadlines, home chores, personal relationships, etc. Some things are out of our control, but managing what is controllable reduces anxiety for me. That and kava!

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

In my opinion, and it's only that - anxiety is directly proportional to unresolved issues.

I think this describes the "average" person's anxiety, the way just about anyone can relate to it.
--- --- ---
I think everyone is born on a sliding scale of anxiety, the majority would be loosely lumped together in the same general area, but then there would be fractions of people who naturally have a higher amount of anxiety, that goes beyond worrying about 'normal' things like everyone else, or life & death situations. Personal experiences are also at play, they can create anxieties where once there wasn't. So to me it's clearly a 'nature and nuture' type of thing.

Kierkegaard's example of looking over a tall ledge is obviously a healthy, normal anxiety. Survival instinct based anxiety, has it's purpose...kick in when needed, to help keep you alive. The "unfocused" anxiety he describes from knowing he has the freedom to jump off doesn't seem much different than the original example to me, other than that it's one step removed. He's having an anxiety response to the imagined idea of jumping off the ledge, presumably while standing near it. But that still sounds like healthy survival instict anxiety. You're feeding the idea of jumping off into your mind and it reacts with anxiety to assure you that would be a negative choice.

The anxiety that leads people to seek remedy is not like those examples, because the previous examples have worthy reasons for the anxious feelings.
The anxiety that brings people to kava, meds or alcohol doesn't need a valid reason to exist. You fear things that are hardly worthy of fear to the 'average' person, you have varying degrees of physical manifestations of anxiety...you can experience the worst anxiety has to offer for seemingly no good reason, and it feels a lot more frightening that way. Having legitimate reasons for your anxiety isn't fun either, but it's normal, serves a purpose and is easily relatable to other people.

...my philosophy is to get more GABA all up in my dome.

 

[Deleted User01]

Is that why you now have a "thing" for conduit pipes...? Sorry.

Sorry, I'm not into all the latest hipster stuff. @verticity, exactly what does one do with conduit pipe? @shakas, you might pitch in too since you have already recommended some "accessories".

 

[nhoeg]

I think this describes the "average" person's anxiety, the way just about anyone can relate to it.
--- --- ---
I think everyone is born on a sliding scale of anxiety, the majority would be loosely lumped together in the same general area, but then there would be fractions of people who naturally have a higher amount of anxiety, that goes beyond worrying about 'normal' things like everyone else, or life & death situations. Personal experiences are also at play, they can create anxieties where once there wasn't. So to me it's clearly a 'nature and nuture' type of thing.

Kierkegaard's example of looking over a tall ledge is obviously a healthy, normal anxiety. Survival instinct based anxiety, has it's purpose...kick in when needed, to help keep you alive. The "unfocused" anxiety he describes from knowing he has the freedom to jump off doesn't seem much different than the original example to me, other than that it's one step removed. He's having an anxiety response to the imagined idea of jumping off the ledge, presumably while standing near it. But that still sounds like healthy survival instict anxiety. You're feeding the idea of jumping off into your mind and it reacts with anxiety to assure you that would be a negative choice.

The anxiety that leads people to seek remedy is not like those examples, because the previous examples have worthy reasons for the anxious feelings.
The anxiety that brings people to kava, meds or alcohol doesn't need a valid reason to exist. You fear things that are hardly worthy of fear to the 'average' person, you have varying degrees of physical manifestations of anxiety...you can experience the worst anxiety has to offer for seemingly no good reason, and it feels a lot more frightening that way. Having legitimate reasons for your anxiety isn't fun either, but it's normal, serves a purpose and is easily relatable to other people.

...my philosophy is to get more GABA all up in my dome.

Kierkegaard uses the man at the cliff as an example of this unfocused / irrational fear, that I think makes a lot of people seek remedies. This is the whole essence of existentialism - questions like "why do we exist?, what makes sense in this world?, who am I?, what can I do and what will I do?" etc. When one asks these questions about life, I think it has a lot to do with anxiety and inner turmoil, that is for the most part; unfocused.

Anxiety informs us of our choices, our self-awareness and personal responsibility. An individual becomes truly aware of their personal potential through the experience of anxiety. This is what existentialists say. Existentialists (like Kierkegaard and Nietzche) also says that depressions and anxiety disorders often are due to not having been able create your own identity and person through responsible choices.

Here's an example (very simplified, so that it almost makes no sense, but I think you get the picture):

Person A's main interest and purpose in life lies in being open towards people and meet new friends. Actually a pretty legitimate 'purpose in life' IMO.
He has a wife that prohibits him from fulfilling this purpose as he would like, because she is seriously ill and needs much attention and care.

Maybe person A knows inside in the back of his head, that he actually COULD be (a lot) happier without the wife - he'll have more freedom and can do whatever he would like to do in order to live his life as he wants. But he's also scared of the consequences of leaving her for good - "will she be OK?, what will her family say? what will my family say?" etc. If his mind is aware, but he doesn't actively choose, he'll live the rest of his days bitter, anxious or maybe depressed.

Personally, I can relate tho this in the way that anxiety is often present because of things that I haven't made responsible choices about yet.

EDIT: Btw., what happened to your old avatar, @shakas? Where is the gentleman?

 

[Deleted User01]

Yeah, sometimes we all have to "bite the bullet" to do the right thing. Some of our choices make our lives miserable, thus the term, "bite the bullet".
@nhoeg, looks like you are digging in deep and maybe even looking for the meaning of life. If you ever find a book that explains the meaning of life and is NOT written by Ancient Aliens, then let me know. I don't trust those Aliens. Remember, their best selling book, "How to serve mankind", is actually a cookbook and not an instruction manual on how to make us happy.

 

[nhoeg]

I will tell you a story sonny ... When I was a kid, I use to walk across this pipe (foot in diameter, 50 ft long) that was like a bridge over the creek. It might have been 15 feet below and falling would have been painful. One day, around the time I started puberty, I froze in the middle of the pipe. I had to straddle the pipe and inch my way across it. And from that day on, I could never cross that pipe as non chalantly as in the past. My guess is that I suddenly feared for my life and was no longer able to taunt death or harm anymore. It was now taunting me. So this anxiety was caused by a strong sense of self-preservation. @nhoeg, this kinda proves your point and it is something that I will never forget because it happened suddenly and without warning.

That is one pretty damn good story, @Deleted User01.

 

[nhoeg]

Yeah, sometimes we all have to "bite the bullet" to do the right thing. Some of our choices make our lives miserable, thus the term, "bite the bullet".
@nhoeg, looks like you are digging in deep and maybe even looking for the meaning of life. If you ever find a book that explains the meaning of life and is NOT written by Ancient Aliens, then let me know. I don't trust those Aliens. Remember, their best selling book, "How to serve mankind", is actually a cookbook and not an instruction manual on how to make us happy.

Aren't we all from time to time about to think things through, @Deleted User01?
You can just start your way on the existentialist-travel. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kafka, Sartre etc.
And you know what? All of them says that 'the meaning of live' is to live your life - right now. Not in the past or in the future, but right now in this very moment. I think it is pretty damn simple. And kinda cute also.

Think of kids - damn they are good at finding purpose in life. Playing around all day, having a blast. Living in the moment. (kliché, iknow). But true!

 

[Deleted User01]

I have a very, very bad memory (thank you the 70s). However, I always remember the pivotal moments in my life when life suddenly changed. There are a limited amount of those moments in our lives and sometimes we don't realize how important they are until we look back and analyze them. That pipe story confounds me to this day.

On your last remark about the meaning of life. I guess I can also say that my bad memory serves me well. I don't dwell in the past and I gave up trying to solve other peoples problems a long time ago. So as the rock band The Grass Roots would sing, "I live for today". But of course with one eye toward retirement.

 

[Deleted User01]

I guess we just got another drive by .... Luckily he ain't spitting out bullets.

 

[nhoeg]

I am much more anxious about things beyond my control. Making choices on my part will not help with my worries about my children.

I fully understand that. But I guess your anxiety is focused on your children specifically?

And @verticity, you are true about Kierkegaard's leap of faith. Even though I don't feel Christian myself, I really admire his way of meeting "God". We see too many people these days that just follows an accepted doctrine, because that "is what everybody does" - we need to create our own existence instead IMO.

As goes for the Nordic countries, I think it is normal to follow specific 'doctrines' here just like everywhere else. I don't think the incidence of anxiety disorders are higher here than elsewhere.