freedom + anxiety

So I was think­ing to­day about the over­all con­cept of free­dom and anx­i­ety and how the two are in­vari­ably linked. 

Kierkegaard wrote that anx­i­ety is “the dizzi­ness of freedom.”

I have been think­ing about this be­cause I see so many posts on so­cial me­dia plat­forms about the crip­pling anx­i­ety that peo­ple feel on a day to day basis.

It would seem to me that the anx­i­ety of mass­es is con­stant­ly grow­ing be­cause our op­tions are ever grow­ing as well. 

Our free­dom to pick our paths seem prac­ti­cal­ly lim­it­less, but we of­ten only see the ob­sta­cles be­tween the goal and where we are. I think this is only a symp­tom of the larg­er prob­lem that ex­ists with­in all of us.

I be­lieve we are al­ways in a state of anx­i­ety and dread, but we hide in hap­py mo­ments that mask the prob­lems that per­sist. When bad things hap­pen, these anx­ious feel­ings arise be­cause we are forced to con­front some sort of weak­ness with­in our­selves. And I do not be­lieve any­one is im­mune to this.

To some ex­tent, we must strip away all of our com­forts whether they be games, drugs, al­co­hol, re­la­tion­ships, par­ties, phys­i­cal wealth, etc. to tru­ly see the prob­lems that are claw­ing away at us. 

I think it is im­por­tant that we take risks and go af­ter the op­por­tu­ni­ties that scare us. Op­por­tu­ni­ties that come with feel­ings of de­spair and dread. 

Be­cause on the oth­er side of these ob­sta­cles may be pro­found per­son­al growth – al­though that is the dizzy­ing free­dom of choice. Though op­tion paral­y­sis, im­poster syn­drome, all can just stop us from do­ing any­thing new or challenging.
 

“Man is con­demned to be free.”
—Jean-Paul Sartre

None of us ever chose to be a free-think­ing be­ing but we are, and tru­ly com­ing to grips with that in­cludes anxiety.

I do not be­lieve these to be neg­a­tive things ei­ther, I don’t even see anx­i­ety or dread as neg­a­tive con­cepts, they ex­ist to re­mind us of con­se­quence. The con­se­quence on the oth­er side of anx­i­ety is per­son­al growth and accomplishment.

I will just con­clude by say­ing, nev­er let anx­i­ety, dread, or de­spair stop you from ac­com­plish­ing some­thing, per­son­al de­vel­op­ment, or pur­su­ing a lofty goal. We did­n’t ask for our free­dom but we have it, nev­er stop us­ing it, it’s our great­est pow­er at­tached to our most crip­pling weakness.

Just some thoughts that have been bub­bling in my nog­gin all day.

 

—lo­gan shepard

Flom­mist Lo­gan Shep­ard is a philoso­pher at heart, an artist in spir­it, and a dic­ta­tor in thought. You can think of him like a mod­ern Dio­genes sans the whole be­ing home­less thing. Copy­right © 2021 Lo­gan Shep­ard. Pic­tured: Paul Nash, We Are Mak­ing a New World, 1918, source.

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