Anxiety
An EXPLANATION that has attained the status of an EXCUSE.
A game of control that everyone loses. The only way to win is to avoid playing entirely.
A prevailing state that causes many to torture themselves until exhaustion hoping to avoid social errors or cause offence. Those of us who have suffered with anxiety often feel compelled to make attempts at mitigating any conceivable anxieties for others, which renders them fragile and less able to manage the inherent difficulties of life. This predictably makes them even more anxious, which highlights the flaw in the strategy.
An unavoidable and ever-present feature of human existence, suggesting that its current status as an excuse for all human thoughts, emotions and conduct guarantees that we cannot be held responsible for anything. This transition, from explaining certain realities to absolving us entirely of them, illustrates a shift from human understanding to human automation.
Anxiety is part of a broader category of maladaptive psychological patterns known as neuroticism. While these patterns can be debilitating - having dramatic effects on our lives - it is worth noting that they are fundamentally egocentric. Our anxious thoughts tend to place us at the centre of all considerations. In truth, most things are not about us, and others do not view us with anywhere near the amount of esteem we anticipate. We do not occupy the thoughts of others nearly as much as we permit them to anxiously occupy ours. We are not that powerful; we are not that important.
Due to the ubiquity of anxiety, we are presented with two opportunities at dehumanizing one another. First, we can both increase the number of opportunities to generate anxiety, as well as the incidence of especially anxiety-inducing stimuli. While the economic benefits of this are evident due to a strong correlation between anxiety and consumerism, it also permits anxiety and fear to be exploited and weaponized. We are often one press of the button away from mistrusting one another because it suits the agenda of the powerful.
Second, it encourages a worldview absent free will. Although this is not raised as commonly as it used to be, if we are to accept that the totality of human experience is excused due to our innate wiring, then there is no room for agency. If we exist as mere recipients relative to external loci of control, then we are unworthy of the dignity and respect we reserve for agents with free will. Anxiety will be experienced, which we will decide needs to be addressed on compassionate grounds, and the cycle will repeat itself at the discretion of those who have decided they occupy a liberated state worthy of dictating the lives of the lesser.
While anxiety is a perfectly reasonable explanation for plenty of human behaviour, permitting it to serve as a mechanism for absolution is to relinquish any value we may possess beyond that of a marionette.
Our anxieties can generate perpetual states of disequilibrium, but they are neither fortuitous nor flogging stick. They inform and clarify, and each of us need to manage them to the best of our ability lest we get taken for a ride.
Attempting to eliminate or reduce anxiety-causing events is a bad strategy that places the fate of our emotional states in the hands of others.
Developing competence, courage and resilience makes us formidable and powerful. Previously challenging events will be transformed into minor hurdles that we step over easily on our way to the next.
Focusing on our weaknesses is inefficient and maladaptive. Developing strengths as a response to environmental stressors is efficient and adaptive.
What is simple may not be easy, but then again, nothing worthwhile ever is.
Revised: 2 Apr 2023
