Anxiety as freedom

[Nagelfar]

Soren Kierkegaard postulated anxiety as a form of self created freedom imposing freedom on itself (something along the lines that infinity dividing infinity is the finite) and compared it to the dizziness experienced from standing at the edge of a precipice and staring down into it.

One has infinite freedom of will to do as one may at any situation; but becoming aware of that freedom makes one not want to squander it on the circumstances as they pass; and then in so grasping for it, one is limited indefinitely from anything; but freely limited as imposed by your own free will upon your infinite potential for freedom in an attempt at preservation of that freedom. Such free retention by will of your freedom for action effectively makes both more unfree than simply acting and moving on to a new state of infinite freedom for action; because of the belief that you could make yourself less free by exercising your freedom.

Therefore, we love our anxiety and so pursue it ourselves as the symbol of our eternalized freedom of that moment. He compared it to Christian sin; something that the consequences of which we don't want, and the consequences of which we understand from the onset, but engage in of our own free will regardless.

Any further insights or critiques?

 

[zagzig]

Sorry if there's no drug talk in this forum, but, "compared it to the dizziness experienced from standing at the edge of a precipice and staring down into it". I've never read that particular quote (it didn't appear in Sophie's world), however, that's always been how I've thought about injecting methamphetamines in my mind (minus the anxiety/fear, the meth rush is like falling off said cliff).

 

[Psyduck]

Any further insights or critiques?

Heidegger took up that Kierkegaardian theme in Being and Time (1927). I'm too lazy to elaborate but feel free to google on the terms: "Dasein resoluteness anxiety Heidegger"

 

[Nagelfar]

Sorry if there's no drug talk in this forum, but, "compared it to the dizziness experienced from standing at the edge of a precipice and staring down into it". I've never read that particular quote (it didn't appear in Sophie's world), however, that's always been how I've thought about injecting methamphetamines in my mind (minus the anxiety/fear, the meth rush is like falling off said cliff).

I know what you are saying about injecting meth; some people have described it as feeling like you're falling backwards into yourself over and over succinctly; but to me it has always been a 'tapered' feeling, like a slight drop, then a slight drop again, and again, in a quick succession. Whereas shooting cocaine is like your body is a rocket taking off; that you're blasting up into space and flying in one deft continual motion of that initial take off into flight.

But this hasn't anything to do with anxiety in & of itself (though, it can make one anxious; the 'fight or flight' of the sympathetic nervous system)

Nor is the feeling that's compared the same; the sensation of falling is not exactly the sensation of dizziness from the self-awareness of preventing oneself from a potential imminent fall.

Heidegger took up that Kierkegaardian theme in Being and Time (1927). I'm too lazy to elaborate but feel free to google on the terms: "Dasein resoluteness anxiety Heidegger"

Yes, I own a translation of Sein und Zeit, the common one by Macquarrie & Robinson.

 

[B9]

Anxiety and freedom are not the same thing - it's the only insight I can come up with.
Are excitement & freedom the same thing ?

 

[qwe]

the ability to sustain material comfort affords me the feeling of freedom (of being able to direct my own destiny and resources, without interference).

anxiety arises and really accelerates itself when this feeling of freedom is threatened.

then again, anxiety could be tied with freedom in many ways... the last time i went grocery shopping, there were too many choices, a case of "freedom" (to choose) causing anxiety. so it does go both ways...

i think it's too much of a stretch to say that anxiety and freedom are "inherently" related.. i can imagine material beings that feel (and are) free but feel no anxiety.

 

[Nagelfar]

This is just that anxiety is a form of freedom; esp. when imposed upon itself (specifically itself) as free will.

 

[Changed]

Coming from somebody that didn't know anxiety before I had a panic attack and some instances of depersonalization , I'd have to stay that anxiety is the opposite of freedom-- not being able to control your body or mind is the most obvious example.

 

[L2R]

2 points of contention:

1- if free will is infinite, and we grasp at it in desparation, what do we lose? infinite minus (inifite minus 1 (factor of any proportion)) still equates to infinite.

2- is the act of clinging on to that which is precious but plentiful an act of free will if it is a predisposed reaction or some other kind of subconscious compulsion? yes we can train ourselves to have new dispositional reactions to certain events, but this training must start from an awareness of it. few have this awareness, hence the general free will assertion here is questionable.

 

[Nagelfar]

2 points of contention:

1- if free will is infinite, and we grasp at it in desparation, what do we lose? infinite minus (inifite minus 1 (factor of any proportion)) still equates to infinite.

Perhaps subtraction or addition, but the complexity and the enormity of division is another matter. For it is trying to ensconce every instance within that infinity infinitely: that is what brings full stop. Your infinite will is being used up upon your infinite freedom; the all of your infinite you so direct takes it away from any else; when one could rationally be using only half of their infinity to manage the other infinity; but this is not the case with anxiety, anxiety is the tying up of the whole in it.

Think of, not dividing by zero, but dividing zero. In strict empirical mathematics it is impossible: there is no answer; but within philosophical concepts of zero, it becomes more interesting... 0, 1 & 2 are all 'numbers' which have fundamental essences different than one another if considered as nothingness, wholeness/oneness, and duality/division, that no further numbers have as concepts or natures (all further numbers are mixes of being a 'whole of some division' one is either whole in itself or whole as a part.)

Coming from somebody that didn't know anxiety before I had a panic attack and some instances of depersonalization , I'd have to stay that anxiety is the opposite of freedom-- not being able to control your body or mind is the most obvious example.

Panic is a different concept here. Anxiety implies a willed approach to a sort of temerity and awareness of such.

 

[LadyLucid]

..He compared it to Christian sin; something that the consequences of which we don't want, and the consequences of which we understand from the onset, but engage in of our own free will regardless.

I like this. Anxiety is like beating yourself up, giving yourself cuts and bruises because you don't think you're skinny enough...defacing something and making it ugly because it is ugly (on the inside). a conundrum
For me, anxiety is freedom from filters in my thoughts, but the resulting static is conflicting paranoia and distracting fear.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Wow, that's some pretty abstract stuff. I had to reread a number of your sentences to get a picture in my head of what's going on. Let me see if I can rephrase it, and you tell me if I understand you. Essentially, people are scared to let themselves go and be spontaneous, because they fear a loss of control or careening into situations unprecedented that they're not sure they know how to handle. So our natural tendency is to hold ourselves back from just letting go and seeing what we're capable of, and we learn to react with anxiety whenever the prospect of pure unfiltered spontaneous action looms. But in a way this is a good thing, because it keeps us grounded and able to tolerate mundane day to day life, as well as steer a course toward the distant future, as we wish it and imagine it to be. In other words, anxiety is what allows us to channel our will from a haphazard outpouring of rays in all directions to a focused laser, with a farther and more precise reach, and keener cutting edge.

I think it's important that society never loses rituals which force us to check all of our anxiety at the door and just spontaneously be and act for a short period of time, lest we forget that our aversion to pure unfiltered spontaneous action / reaction is entirely self-imposed. I see late night drumming and dancing rituals with or without drugs, which are the ancestor of raves, to be basically this. When I'm tearing up a dance floor on LSD, there's nothing to be added to the experience by imposing any logical order or 'shoulds' to what I'm doing. There is no inner monologue doing analysis and predicting the next step. There is only the music entering my mind causing my muscles to move. And there is only that moment, right then and there. By running wild like this every now and then, I'm able to return to a world where there are things to plan for and worry about and take it in stride.

 

[Nagelfar]

I think you have the gist of what Kierkegaard meant. I would only add, in Humean fashion, that freedom as indeterminate (unrestricted possibility) can only be free as a limit determining it into a particular. Freedom requires the ability to be limited to be freely expressed. Pure determinism & pure indeterminacy are both unfree: they require a mixture to make freedom.

Also: the mixture of what's determined and what's indeterminable cannot be determined or indeterminate by any factor beyond itself, so they both must each be infinitely so.

 

[malakaix]

Initially i glanced passed this thread, i recently came across some of Søren Kierkegaard's work outlining 'existential angst' which reminded me of this thread, and i couldn't believe someone had described what i've spent a year struggling to understand with myself.

The archetypal example is the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that "nothing is holding me back", one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom.

 

[jamaica0535]

I think that it may have some validity, but while it is the general course of things not everything we do is rational or the best course of action.

Know that worrying is about as useful as trying to solve an algebra equation with bubblegum.

Try it, the next time something triggers anxiety take a moment, breath, distance yourself from the stress and try to look at the situation with a cool level head.

Situations tend to spiral, when one thing goes wrong it all too often seems to bring things tumbling down. The opposite is true with good moments we just tend to never appreciate the good things in our lives until their gone. Don't fixate on a problem, contemplate solutions to the problem.

Most people's anxiety is not based on rational thought, but trust in that its so much easier to find your lost keys in the morning if you just calm down and think about where you put them, or the last place you remember them instead of tearing your room apart so your not late for work. Eventually you will realise they were on the kitchen counter all along, but only after tearing through half the house.

Anxiety is a very basic emotional response, but a powerful one. In most cases its a pretty useless emotional response. Anxiety is a result of a good long while of not being part of the food chain and our general upbringings and socialisations. Know that at the end of the day, if your not dead then life goes on. These things that cause anxiety, only do it because you throw yourself into a cycle of feeding it. Possessions are replaceable, as is money. Your life being threatened, that should be what causes anxiety; everything else is replaceable.

 

[Nagelfar]

I think that it may have some validity, but while it is the general course of things not everything we do is rational or the best course of action.

Rationality/empirical rationalism, the best course of action, and the path of least resistance are all objectified, determined, rigid, and unfree. "Best course" is relative, and I think 'freely' is the only true best course; while never able to be the determined 'optimal course' to a particular end without losing its free nature.

 

[emingos]

recently my anxiety and depresssion lifted almost entirely after many years of suffering

i havent read søren kirkegårds materiel even tho im from dk (only glanced over it)

but the biggest helpers for me have been to be totally true to yourself and those helping you, be active, instead of taking a pill if a thing is getting to you then try without and after some times it will get better! Its hard in the start but only gets better but you have to fight!

dont hide from these things thats what you want to i know, but it dont help! (easy'er said then done i know,took me 2 years before even trying to fight it)

(some side info, i dont use ssri's ive tryed and stopped after my doctor trying over 10 diffent ones over the years, i do use some benzo's sometimes when it get bad, but that only work as temp solution)

but actively fighting the things that give you the anxiety work long term, maybe it takes some times to get over it but its get better every time! try it out

sorry for the rant, i hope some of it can help somewhat
best of luck with all the ppl suffering from this ugly illness

edit1: now i kinda have to read that materiel...

 

[Quantum Perception]

Anything can be symbolized as anything else. And Kierkegaard with his wonderful mind drew the bridge between anxiety and freedom.

Yet, I don't agree only because I don't believe in free will, only choice. Neurological experiments have shown that scientists can predict what decision one will makes up to seven seconds before the person makes the decision.

So i just don't believe in free will because our will is always constrained by environmental and historical circumstances. I do believe in choice because we can choose, but its not free because we always have to give something up for it. For example, if someone decides to do something they haven't done before, they give up their sense of certainty. No action is completely free of restrictions or sacrifices.

So freedom IMO is complete surrender and acceptance of what is. Anxiety one the other hand can lead to freedom, but only by means of rethinking it to the point that it ceases to become what it was and becomes something completely new.