Anxiety and Honesty

"Reality is the leading cause of stress
among those who are
in touch with it."
- unknown

There is a saying: "If you're not anxious, you're in denial."

There is a kind of taboo about talking about, or expressing anxiety directly. Whenever it's brought up as a topic of conversation, people often begin feeling uncomfortable and want to change the subject.

Why?

It seems that popularly, anxiety is often viewed as a "problem," - meaning, that normal, healthy people don't have it. If someone is honest about experiencing it, then there must be something "wrong" with them, and they need to buy some pills or go to therapy - because something is "wrong."

Actually, the opposite is the case.

Someone has a clear and accurate understanding of life typically knows that there is plenty to be anxious about. As a person grows up, they become aware (not unaware or unconscious) of more and more anxiety-producing aspects of life, and realize that often, to put it simply, life is hell.

So, to a degree, those who aren't anxious . . . are in denial.

It is almost as if anxiety can grow in two directions:

1. anxiety can grow from becoming less aware (for example, growing more and more anxious about things that aren't there), and
2. anxiety can grow from becoming more aware of life.
   

Of course, there are degrees, and there are some times when the level of anxiety grows into a problem, and mainstream psychology is correct in treating it as such.

Bu still, certain people who are uncommonly sensitive and perceptive are more aware than others about certain truths about life - such as for example, the facts of death, and impermanence, and other similar matters - and so, they experience more anxiety.

The majority of people evidently refuse to look at or consider such grave matters, and keep a firm wall of defenses up against even becoming aware of these topics. Others, however, are less likely to "look the other way" - and while they may have a greater perception of truth, for a while, at least, they may also experience more anxiety as a result.

This is the aspect of existential anxiety.

"Existential anxiety is a type of anxiety
which is rooted in the very existence of man.
It is inescapable and unavoidable.
The more a person becomes aware of the essential structure of existence,
the more this kind of anxiety is stirred up . . .
Part of the training of life is to increase one's ability to tolerate anxiety."
- Haridas Chaudhuri

". . . each of us repeats the tragedy of the mythical Greek Narcissus:
we are hopeless absorbed with ourselves.
If we care about anyone it is usually ourselves first of all.
As Aristotle somewhere put it:
luck is when the guy next to you gets hit with the arrow . . .
This narcissism is what keeps men marching into point-blank fire in wars:
at heart one doesn't feel that he will die,
he only feels sorry for the man next to him . . ."
- Ernest Becker, Pulitzer-Prize winner, The Denial of Death

What, then, is one to do about this kind of anxiety, that increases with becoming more aware of life? This amounts to solving the problem of anxiety as Primal Ignorance . . .

Talk about it:
info@livereal.com

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