Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The philosophy of anxiety
What do you think anxiety is and what role does it have in your life? Can it be a positive force or is it mostly debilitating? In the modern age, do we have a tendency prescribe medications for it too quickly, as this author claims, or is he just confusing anxiety and depression?
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A concept of modern society is based on personal feeling of satisfaction and comfort, where other emotions signaling inner disequilibrium have no place. Such feelings are symbols of shortage, or lack of something like love, social contact or self-esteem.
ReplyDeleteI believe our modern medicine is overly concerned about “curing” anything that does not fit an image of an average person, without fears, happily working and consuming. Angst, anxiety and nervousness all get in way and hinder the social progress. I know that there are people, who without any help would be unable to get over certain situations and move forward, but should we not distinguish? Distinguish amongst different types of those “bad” feelings. I wrote bad with apostrophes, because I do not think there is such a thing as a bad feeling. Emotions are rather different, different than anything else. Where do they come from? From our brain, from our body or from our soul? Biologically, they are just chemical reactions within our body, hormones traveling from one site to another, affecting our senses and neurons. Though, is it all there is to them? I am convinced they cannot be classified purely by science. In fact, I think if they could be, they would not be emotions anymore.
I have got to know Kierkegaard through my project for Slovak language. I was to do a presentation about existentialism, and I found out that Kierkegaard is generally considered to be the founder of existentialism. However, I did not know that he was the first to be interested in anxiety, which others so profoundly avoided. I am a little bit of philosopher myself. I like to think about things. I like to concern myself with thoughts of life and dead, and I challenge my beliefs almost daily. I admire those who could and those who still can think without any restrictions. I mean those, who were not afraid, at any times, challenge even the most in-stone-engraved dogmas of the world. As Mr Marino described Kierkegaard, he was exactly such a person. He thought about anxiety and developed those ideas into complex works. As I read through the article I found myself agreeing on the matter. The idea that through anxiety one discovers own freedom is excellent. Worrying about the future is undoubtedly connected to thinking and deciding. Only when we decide and think about the consequences we face the tremendous responsibility coming from those decisions. We, well at least those concerned about the fallout of our decisions, may literally feel the burden getting heavier the more complicated the decisions are. As I understood it, this burden is the anxiety Kierkegaard wrote about. Therefore, I think I also got a grasp of idea that if one maintains that he or she had never been anxious, Kierkegaard would consider him very spiritless. Unless one is concerned with own future (own decisions), one cannot possess much of a spirit, rather simply and blindly he or she conveniently follows the general flow. That is, indeed, very spiritless.
Unfortunately, I feel that yet, I do not possess the capability to express what I have thought about in words (and this is not the first case, as even when saying “I love you” to my girlfriend, I am aware that it does not reflect what I really feel), when reading the article, but I hope that in the near future, I will develop my abilities to the point I will be able to say what I really think about, without compromising the thoughts. One last question but entered my mind, whether I will not develop the abilities to think more deeply simultaneously as well, and continue being unable to express myself with language. For that, I will have to wait.