Stoicism appeals to me because of its simplicity. No visions, no frenzy, no ennui; a simple and sensible acknowledgement of the folly of disturbing yourself with matters over which you have no control, and determination to govern yourself instead of trying to govern others, or events.

In the sphere of psychoanalysis, it would be characterized as something emerging from the unconscious that cannot be realized. Stuck, as it were, in a 'becoming' phase. You seem right to talk about things beyond one's control, and I believe this is what makes this subject such a problem for people. It is because anxiety as a notion does not fit nicely into any ordinary determination, and like art, it seems to always to be transitory and escaping the understanding. Is there such a thing as a philosophy of the unconscious? That seemed to be Jung's project, though it struggled at times with straining parallels between a human being's subjective and objective mind. The stoics were good in this arena because they knew their limits.

Good morning, sunshines!
Yes. Stoicism is simple, plain and does not remind me of dry bread and water. And the rules and aphorisms, advices give me strength to do hard things of the days.

It gets to the point. And people who believe in free will, or want to be active actors of their life and their decisions, are happier. It makes no sense to try to move a mountain, or someone’s mind.

And the funniest and at the same time saddest thing is: “If you were a puppet and people could control your body, you would not let them, but you lend your mind every day and let yourself be deceived and manipulated by others, you let yourself get angry, you let yourself be taken out of your inner harmony, well-being. Are you balanced at all?”

Jung went deep down to the the unconscious... And he dig and dig. and he met that little guy, that warlock, What guards the tower.

Slavok Žižek could tell: no inner world exist.

But I know, the unconscious is real!

It's interesting that you title the thread "the art of thinking". I believe the key to bringing anxiety into the category of beneficial is to provide it with direction. Notice what is stated in your first sentence, your inclination is to ask the person in distress, what do they want. But if the distress is anxiety related this is a useless question, because anxiety only creates distress if the anxiety in undirected. Rather than the fear of the unknown, anxiety is the unknown of fear.

Anxiety can be said to "create" distress, and the purpose for anxiety in general is to motivate the creative act. But if there is nothing substantial being created, the anxiety is undirected and the result is distress. The key to making your anxiety beneficial (and this means to progress beyond simply coping with anxiety) is to be creative. Anxiety is a reflection of your living disposition toward the future. When you are fearful of the future and the reason for being fearful is unknown, that thought, the reason why you are fearful is replaced by anxiety. When you are actively doing something, being creative, you bring the future into your control, by knowing what you are doing. If a reason for fear arises, it is in relation to what you are doing, and you know the reason for it.

So my answer to "Does my anxiety help me in something?" is yes, it most certainly does. It helps you to be creative. Without any anxiety you would not do anything. However, it is very important that when you feel anxiety you actually do something. So the anxiety is first, it is fundamental to the living being, and it is from the subconscious, the drive to be active. If you are actively doing something your fears will be revealed to your thoughts, and your anxiety will continue to seek more unknowns (as curiousity), to be revealed through action. If you are inactive, the unknowns will overwhelm you.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. My intention was not to categorize anxiety as beneficial. Certainly, being active and creative can help alleviate anxiety, but in my experience, it can persist even during action. Not only during passivity but also during activity, a person can feel the weight of anxiety. I’m not sure of the exact term for this phenomenon. Perhaps you are referring to intrusive thoughts—those persistent, unwelcome ideas that can cause distress. During an anxious episode, emotions often override rationality, leading to a struggle between reason and intense feelings. It’s like a battle of emotions and logic. Slowing down, conscious breathing, and reminding yourself that you are in control can indeed be helpful strategies. Remember, those intrusive thoughts are not truly you; they are just passing mental events.

it can persist even during action. Not only during passivity but also during activity, a person can feel the weight of anxiety. I’m not sure of the exact term for this phenomenon. Perhaps you are referring to intrusive thoughts—those persistent, unwelcome ideas that can cause distress. — MorningStar

I agree that anxiety will persist even during activity. This could be anxiety in relation to the end, or goal, or it could be in relation to something completely different, perhaps a goal not pursued by the current activity. I think those would be instances of intrusive thoughts. I find that the more negative form of anxiety is completely undirected by the conscious mind, so that it appears to have no source, and it is therefore more difficult to quell. We cannot characterize this anxiety as intrusive thoughts because it is prior to, and independent from the intrusive thoughts. The anxiety produces the intrusive thoughts, which are thoughts that cannot be directed toward the current activity.

During an anxious episode, emotions often override rationality, leading to a struggle between reason and intense feelings. It’s like a battle of emotions and logic. Slowing down, conscious breathing, and reminding yourself that you are in control can indeed be helpful strategies. Remember, those intrusive thoughts are not truly you; they are just passing mental events. — MorningStar

Consider thinking to be a form of activity. It is borderline between the conscious activity of physically moving oneself, and the subconscious inclination toward moving oneself (how I described anxiety). The indecisive person will think rather than move, but the thoughts may still be directed by the conscious mind in a way similar to the way that movement is directed by the mind. However, since anxiety, or the inclination to act, arises from the subconscious, it can cause undirected thoughts, or thoughts which the conscious mind has difficulty directing, because the source of the anxiety is unknown, and different types of anxiety would produce different types of thoughts. This would be what you call "intrusive thoughts".

So I wouldn't class the intrusive thoughts as "not truly you", I would class them in the opposite way, as "the true you". This is because the conscious mind is just the very top level of "you", and the vast majority of your activity, all your bodily systems for example, are in the subconscious. Therefore anxiety, and the intrusive thoughts which spring from it are actually "the true you", and you need to learn how to deal with them as such. This means that you cannot use your conscious mind to suppress and make your anxiety go away. Attempting to do this would be to pursue an impossible goal, and that would produce more anxiety in relation to that goal.

So i think the better strategy is to recognize the limits of your control. To quell the anxiety you must allow the activity which it is inclined to produce, thinking. And you cannot control the thoughts until after they're being produced. What I find has been a good strategy for me is to have various "objects" (which may be various goals or constructive things to think about), each of a different category or type, and depending on the type of thoughts which are inclined to be arising, I can send them into the appropriate category for direction. I think it is important to have the required goals or categories which are suited to the types of thoughts which you get, or else you would get the confusion and anxiety of attempting to direct your thoughts in a way which is unsuited to them.

Martin Heidegger: Analogy with a tree and a forest - anxiety is like the entire forest of trees. You don't see individual trees, what they are and how they are. Fear is a specific tree, one or two. But you don't see the whole forest, the connections, interdependence, sensuousness, and what is behind the next tree. Being and time. Do you see those other perspectives? — MorningStar

To continue what I pointed out yesterday, that I think you have things backward, I'll address the problem with this passage in the op. What you "see", meaning sense through the perceptive power of sight, is individual trees. The "forest" is a conception of thought, an abstraction which is not "seen" except in the more metaphoric sense in which the mind sees things.

The object of fear is the unknown, in a sense there is no object, and that produces the fear. So we cannot say that "fear is a specific tree", because that would imply that the fear is a thing seen and known as "a tree". Even if you see a particular object and there is fear relative to that object (a menacing animal or person for example), it is the unknown, what that object might do, which produces the fear.

The conception, "the forest", is always to some degree incomplete, it does not directly include every single tree. Therefore within the conception there are elements of the unknown, and this is the seed for fear and anxiety. So within your conversion of the sense image, (a whole lot of individual trees), to an object of thought, (the abstraction "forest"), there is a whole lot of the unseen, consequently unknown, which is allowed to inhere within the conception, and this propagates anxiety. You apprehend "a forest", but within this forest there is a whole lot of unseen trees.

The act, by which the abstraction is produced, is commonly and often habitual. You look ahead of you and see "a forest". You do not consciously think, 'I'm seeing some trees and I'm concluding there's a forest', so the unknown, and therefore the seed for fear and anxiety, is allowed right into your thought without you even knowing it. Once that seed for anxiety is there, you cannot recognize it because it is an unknown which has already been incorporated into the known. Your thoughts are the known, yet the unknown inheres within. That is why it is important to keep track of your thoughts as they arise, and assess them methodically. There are various ways of doing this, such as the skeptical method, to prevent the fear and anxiety from growing within.

The object of fear is the unknown, in a sense there is no object, and that produces the fear. — Metaphysician Undercover

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Not quite. Whether the object of fear is known is irrelevant to Heidegger's distinction between fear and anxiety. Instead, the source of the phenomenon (within the world or not within the world) determines whether the phenomenon is fear or anxiety.

That in the face of which one has fear is always an entity within the world while that in face of which one has anxiety is not an entity within the world. See Being and Time at 230-231, (Macquarrie & Robinson).

Simply put, "the forest and the trees" is not a good analogy for understanding Heidegger's distinction between fear and anxiety.

I don't want to make any mystification, but this comparison with the forest, said one philosopher lecturer, and maybe it doesn't come from Heidegger, or I'm not interpreting it correctly. But Heidegger was quite concerned with metaphysics and was a phenomenologist.

I agree with your statement, fear - a graspable entity. The anxiety of the unfathomable.

Yes!

Something is not according to the plan, their idea, and one is anxious about it.
It's just that the lust to have it all under control is so loud that we are faced with great anxiety.
However, a person asks himself to what extent can he influence external and internal things? Is it in my power? What we don't have control over, we should be calm about it and we shouldn't be upset by it.



If we go to psychology, there are really many diagnoses:

Generalized anxiety disorder

Mixed anxiety-depressive disorder
Social phobia
Agoraphobia
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Panic disorder
Specific phobias

Not quite. Whether the object of fear is known is irrelevant to Heidegger's distinction between fear and anxiety. Instead, the source of the phenomenon (within the world or not within the world) determines whether the phenomenon is fear or anxiety.

That in the face of which one has fear is always an entity within the world while that in face of which one has anxiety is not an entity within the world. See Being and Time at 230-231, (Macquarrie & Robinson).

Simply put, "the forest and the trees" is not a good analogy for understanding Heidegger's distinction between fear and anxiety. — Arne

I do not think I would agree with this Heideggerian distinction between fear and anxiety. It is not the "entity within the world" which is the source of fear, but what is known about the entity. When the entity is known to be a threat, or even a risk, there may be fear.

So I agree that I placed "fear" in the wrong category, saying that it concerned the unknown, when really there must be a large degree of "known" involved, to provoke fear. "Anxiety", on the other hand requires "unknown", and it is associated with risk. So I think anxiety is best represented as the other side of the same relation to the same object. You can see "fear" (cowardice), and "confidence" (courage), as the two opposing aspects of the known part of the relation, while "anxiety" and "complacence" are the two opposing aspects of the unknown part of the relation. "Relation" here would indicate the person's attitude toward the specific "entity within the world".

I would not agree with Heidegger as you describe him, because I do not think we can make a clean break between fear and anxiety, as proposed, such that one would require an object, and the other not. Sometimes fear is directed at an object (rational fear) and sometimes it is not (irrational fear), and likewise with anxiety. The undirected fear, as irrational fear, directed at an imaginary object, is still fear rather than anxiety, but it is directed at an imaginary object. So fear and anxiety are the two sides of the same emotion, the known side, and the unknown side. The irrational aspect is due to faulty knowledge where the imaginary takes precedence, but it must still be classified as the "known" because the subject thinks oneself to know. If there is an object involved, then fear and anxiety are the two relations to that same object, and it makes no sense to say the fear has an object but the anxiety does not.

Notice also, the other possibilities. If, one has fear, and also complacence, there is no anxiety. And, if instead of fear, one has confidence, there could still be anxiety, or complacence along with the confidence. If we were to make the separation proposed by Heidegger it would leave anxiety as completely unintelligible, and that would render it as completely bad.

I do not think I would agree with this Heideggerian distinction between fear and anxiety. — Metaphysician Undercover

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My only intent is to clarify the basis for Heidegger's distinction, i.e.,whether the source of the phenomenon is within the world.

And you are welcome.

But Heidegger was quite concerned with metaphysics and was a phenomenologist. — MorningStar

I am not saying Heidegger is correct. I am only clarifying how Heidegger distinguishes between fear and anxiety. Whether he is correct is a different question.

Heidegger's primary concern is ontology rather than metaphysics. And phenomenological description was his preferred ontological approach. For Heidegger, either the nature of being as phenomenologically described strikes one as accurate or it does not. If it strikes one as accurate, then just keep moving. If it strikes one as inaccurate, then it is time to get hermeneutical. :-)

In reading this discussion, I’m wondering: Is “anxiety” a condition that strikes only when things are beyond our control? Or is it possible for us to be anxious about something over which we do, in fact, have control?

For example, flying in an airplane can make a passenger anxious because it is the pilot, the airplane’s mechanical integrity, weather, etc. that affect the airplane’s safety – not the passenger. So clearly this is a case where anxiety is the result of (the passenger) being out of control.

But what about being anxious about cooking a meal for someone? Said cook can certainly be anxious that the meal he or she is preparing is worthy of his or her guest. The cook is not worried about the stove exploding, or someone interrupting him or her, or any other outside negative influence. He or she is just anxious about the meal itself – the meal he or she has chosen and planned – all of which he or she controls. This includes what constitutes the meal, which spices to add, how long to cook the food, the presentation and plating, etc.

So although it’s possible to be anxious about things that are beyond one’s control, it seems to be equally possible to be anxious about things that are within one’s control. Lucky for us, anxiety knows no bounds! <smile>

This discussion makes me wonder about something else as well:

Anxiety is often diagnosed and treated as a psychiatric disorder – not a state of ignorance. What I mean is, the reading of stoic philosophers – though enriching and enlightening – may not affect some forms of (psychiatrically diagnosed) anxiety, which are thought to be caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters. Patients suffering from such forms of anxiety are instead often successfully treated by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). So perhaps where philosophy and psychiatry meet is the place where we can see the forest and the trees!

I find phenomenology difficult to grasp and prove in practice. In my opinion, Stoicism is clear and precise about how to behave in which situation, and for me it is easier to apply in everyday life, whether at work or in personal life..

How do I know whether or not I am anxious? Is it even one thing? It sometimes looks as if people are talking about different things - Does anxiety have an object, real or imagined, towards which it is necessarily directed - final exams, getting cancer, or whatever - or can one just be suffused with a feeling of anxiety about everything and nothing?

a person in distress — MorningStar

How can I order my thinking to be quiet, so that my thoughts, those unruly hounds, will crawl to my feet? How can I ever hope ... So that I can hear your voice loudly and see your face clearly..." — Jung

This is so clear and smart. I need to quieten my thinking before I can attend to you. Anxiety is unruly thinking that keeps dragging one's attention away from the world, and towards itself.

"How can I order my thinking to be quiet?" my thought demands over and over again.

Here is a Zen koan, half remembered:

Disciple— What shall I do if I have a persistent thought in my head?
Master — Throw it out.
Disciple— But if it is too powerful and I cannot throw it out?
Master — Then carry it out.

Myself is the most persistent thought; I am the anxiety I am anxious to be rid of.

Do you think people who think more in images than in words are more prone to anxiety, worse attention, but on the other hand, more open to visions and revolutionary ideas? What helps you? For me, it's writing a journal. Tell me what is your voice — MorningStar

Very interesting. As someone who has struggled with anxiety, I would say that whether or not they are more open to visions or revolutionary ideas, they are more likely to conform anyway. I think it is also likely that if people who think more in images (I do both equally) are more prone to anxiety, it’s probably just because their actual thinking contains more terrifying outcomes (as more possible with thinking in images) and so they are more anxious.
I don’t really know though.

Being, as are others of us here, older (read: old), I can and do reflect on times of anxiety in my life. And it seems to me that anxiety qua is not itself a problem to be solved- because it is not really a problem that can be solved. Thus many responses to anxiety, especially from persons not themselves anxious, simply miss the mark. Not to disqualify insights about anxiety or the distinction between fears and anxiety, but instead to try to get to what, exactly, anxiety is. When young, I think anxiety comes about because a brain/mind (I mean here two different things working at the same time) lacks maturity and maybe chemical balance needed to not be anxious - and one grows out of this. For older folks, I suspect it arises from situations of the threat of loss of control, again likely a brain/mind condition.

I find it can be useful when anxious to ask myself explicitly, "What purpose are these feelings that I am having right now doing for me?" I find a double benefit - one in being able to ask, the other in trying to answer.

Something is not according to the plan, their idea, and one is anxious about it.
It's just that the lust to have it all under control is so loud that we are faced with great anxiety. — MorningStar

It seems to me that anxiety is a generalized or disseminated form of fear, and fear is aversion to an undesirable future possibility. Like fears, some anxiety is good and some is bad. The physiological problem with anxiety is that it's not sustainable or healthy, and so to expose oneself to anxiety for prolonged periods of time is problematic.

It sometimes looks as if people are talking about different things - Does anxiety have an object, real or imagined, towards which it is necessarily directed - final exams, getting cancer, or whatever - or can one just be suffused with a feeling of anxiety about everything and nothing? — unenlightened

I think that when anxiety is directed toward a specific thing it is understandable, and therefore generally not in itself disconcerting. Depending on what the object is, the anxiety will reach a level corresponding with the importance of the object. This is understandable as the level of anxiety tends to remain consistent with the importance of the object.

When anxiety appears for no apparent reason, and has no specific direction, this is a completely different situation. Then it feeds on itself, unnerving the individual, making that person a victim. This I believe is the nature of a panic attack, anxiety without an object.

Do you think people who think more in images than in words are more prone to anxiety, worse attention, but on the other hand, more open to visions and revolutionary ideas? What helps you? For me, it's writing a journal. Tell me what is your voice — MorningStar

Anxiety is a sort of state where you are physically in one world (about to walk on stage to deliver a speech to 500 people), but psychologically/mentally detached - somewhere else, into your fears, maybe unable to walk on stage.

Thinking itself is like a non-emotional, but similar relationship with the world - you suspend or postpone the flow of thing to come; you treat the world that you are in as an object of thought. So thinking itself is like a ground for a more emotional relationship such as anxiety.

I don’t know if thinking more visually leads somehow to more anxiety (I do think visually and certainly get anxious). I think someone who thinks often ( which can be anyone of any intelligence) is more prone to anxiety.

When anxiety appears for no apparent reason, and has no specific direction, this is a completely different situation. Then it feeds on itself, unnerving the individual, making that person a victim. This I believe is the nature of a panic attack, anxiety without an object. — Metaphysician Undercover

Just so. I would suggest that OCD sufferers have such undirected anxiety, and they try to allay it with ritualised behaviour which they become addicted to. The feeding on itself seems to be the major feature of this, and also of panic attacks. If the sufferer gets out of breath, she thinks she is suffocating, if her heartbeat increases, she thinks she is having a heart attack.

Thinking itself is like a non-emotional, but similar relationship with the world — Fire Ologist

Unfortunately, this is not the case. For the anxious person, the great difficulty is that every thought about their anxiety increases their anxiety, and every attempt to allay it directs thought back to it and increases it.

As Peter Pan said, 'All you have to do is think happy thoughts'. And the anxious person's response is always, 'But I don't know how to think happy thoughts.' That is an unhappy, anxiety inducing thought, that they then try to get rid of by thinking happy thoughts, and the circle is complete, and goes round and round for a whole lifetime.

The best response to any internal event is passive acceptance. Feel the fear, notice the circular thinking, the murderous anger, or whatever comes to one's attention of one's own condition, and let it be. The mind is a playground of nonsense, like a bucket of muddy water. Stop stirring and wait; the mud will settle of its own accord, and anything you do will only stir it up again. This is the stoicism of mind.

My current thinking
The mind is always constructing and projecting "fiction" which triggers real feelings in the body, in turn prompting behavior (broadly, e.g. belief is behavior).
Some fiction triggers pleasure, some pain; some, specifically the pain associated with fear.
Anxiety is an over production of tge fiction which triggers the pain associated with fear.
Why does this misfiring of mind take place, besides the obvious like trauma? Etc. Psychoanalysis or other types of dynamic therapy might disclose the root cause of the over production of that kind of fiction and, in that way, awaken the anxious to "fix" the Narrative.
But that's hard work. The misfiring and triggering of fear is habitual. It is a conditioned narrative which autonomously surfaces to do it's painful job. The best solution is to work hard at make nontriggering Narratives the go to for surfacing, by forming new habits and sticking to them. It's all ultimately constructions and projections anyway.
Of course, that too is hard work, but you are making progress at the first step and each step thereafter is actual progress; while digging for the why might work, but might first take years of going down wrong paths, making paths up, and so on.

The mind is always constructing …. which triggers … the body...

Why does this misfiring of mind take place — ENOAH

The mind itself IS the misfiring. All else obeys the firing. But the misfire, the mind, does not, and this creates anxiety in a world that is firing.

Agreed