Anxiety and Freedom

Angst, dread and anxiety are things I usually think of as 'modern' problems; they're brought about by a mind unexhausted from the life-labor it was meant for. Where historical survival was little more than simple strategies applied with simple effort to things within our simple sphere of control, modernity now leaves us to mill over the problems of the world well beyond that sphere, and we sustain the strain of that simple effort we were meant to exert, but now with no strategy or movement. We only have the worry of all of the decisions that can't be made. Our tank is full, the pedal is floored, but we're still in the garage.

Barry Schwartz coined 'the paradox of choice' within the last few decades. He says, "Autonomy and freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has had before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from it psychologically"

Magazine stands give the best example of this, where we are offered dozens of topics and interests, each with dozens of titles... with virtually no stakes for choosing poorly. I laughed when reading about this, as I've been supremely guilty of touring a Barnes and Noble for several hours only to walk away with nothing. Why? I like reading magazines... but the thought of picking one is a genuinely unpleasant experience... so much so that I would rather forego the potential benefit of having a new magazine to read if it means avoiding the pain of having to reject all the ones I didn't commit to.

Another problem from the first world: deciding where to eat. Recently my wife and I changed our eating habits as as an overdue attempt to come back to competitive form. I needed to shed the sympathy fat from her pregnancy and desperately needed her on board (try living on chicken and rice while your partner eats Thai food at will). We quickly discovered that living off of the same 4 ingredients was so good that it was just what we were going to do now; despite our fears of limiting our freedom to eat with reckless abandon on a whim (a fear that cripples most struggling with weight loss), it actually turned out to be a COMPLETE net benefit to our life.... for no other reason than we simply never fought about what to eat.

Think on that... how can you call an existence anything but spoiled when most of your turmoil comes from yelling at our partner to make a decision about our endless list of immediate, varied and delicious food options?

Now, this paradox seems like just a funny bit of pop psychology, an interesting quirk of humans that can only be utilized by shops and marketers to avoid turning off customers. But Kierkegaard wrote about the 'modern' problems of anxiety almost 200 years ago; "Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."  Kierkegaard described anxiety to be "both the attraction to and the repulsion from the nothingness of future possibilities. Thus, anxiety is not simply a psychological state, mood or feeling, but is an ontological structure essential to human being and is the mark of human freedom." (cont 2)

So choice gives us anxiety and, to Kierkegaard, that's the mark of a man. To be free in any sense means to grapple with anxiety and it's not optional; it is the price of admission to the park.

I agree mostly; to soothe anxiety for the sake of not experiencing any is a soggy bandaid to a bursting damn. Anything with stakes, with risk, where we are invested in the outcome, should cause fear and I would like to see the script for a fulfilling life that ends with an obituary worth reading that doesn't contain it's share of anxiety. But Kierkegaard wasn't writing in the day of social media, door dash, and cell phone plans and even he would have looked at a society flush with anxiety over wars they aren't involved in and daily decisions that have no stakes and said, "this isn't the park I was talking about."

Remember, the dose makes the poison. Everything that keeps you alive can snuff you out of existence if it is dosed too high. Drink too much water and don't urinate... you'll die. Expose yourself to sunshine without break... you'll die. For our modern strain of the 'freedom flu', I would argue lowering your dose of 'freedom' as a more effective prescription than just accepting it as the burden of a free man.

If this is a triggering though, understand the charged part of the word "freedom" that we hold so dear is really not allowing a government or institution to have it's jackboot on your neck... I shouldn't have to explain that, "I'm right there with you, brother! RED DAWN!" But to live a happy life and be worth a damn to the people around you, you have to know which decisions to fight for and when to save your energy. Fighting against cancelling your subscription services, committing to a meal plan, or muting your notifications from network news is NOT on par with William Wallace charging against the English. (cont 3)

And this goes so much deeper than superficial consumer bullshit. Bring up a 12 step addiction recovery program to anyone with a thought on free-will, religion, politics or sociology and you will get a deluge of hostile criticisms rooted in the 'preservation of freedom'. Someone on the political right might take umbrage with using the word 'disease' to describe alcoholism... they see it as a strategy to remove free will, and thus responsibility and justice, from the dynamic of addiction. Someone on the political left hears the part about 'submitting to a higher power' and responds with a, "fuck right off, I'm not submitting to shit!". But the removal of freedom is what makes the program effective (and save your bullshit, it is; those in program are more than twice as likely to achieve an abstinent recovery than formal treatment alone). To an addict, hearing "you aren't fucking God" removes the guilt that perpetuates self-abuse, checks the narcissism that puts them at the center of everyone else's universe, allows them to step outside of their broken machinations and see themselves as something in need of treatment, rather than feeding into the laypersons sense of 'justice' which treats them with vindictiveness and hostility (cathartic for those who were casualties in the life of an addict, yep, but also a great way to guarantee high relapse rates).

Hating the things that ground you is like a bird hating the resistance of the air... it can't fucking fly without it! Your flawed and limited human brain, evolved to function in a specific environment alongside other people in small communities, benefits from a society that produces fantastic quantities of innovation, yet the worlds smartest person understands a fraction of a percent of the worlds knowledge. Freedom doesn't mean you, snapped here into existence in an infinite sandbox with unlimited power and choice and untethered to anything. To be actually, meaningfully free you need to be able to function and the self-centered motivation to white-knuckle every choice and to deny your reliance on things bigger than you... that only gives dysfunction.

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