Good Morning,

Happy Hump Day, everyone.

“If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.” - Epictetus

For our main course, we’re going to look at Martin Heidegger, and his philosophy around something currently affecting over 359 million people worldwide: anxiety. For our thought exercise, we’re going to try and shift our feelings toward uncertainty. Wrapping up with our Book Nook, we’re going to open up Heidegger’s Being and Time.

Pull up a chair, Thought Breakfast is served!

Anxiety can be a tricky thing to talk about, as everyone interprets and reacts to the world in their own unique way. If you’re struggling with anxiety, I would suggest talking with a mental health professional to try and get better. That being said, today’s edition is not a clinical medical analysis of anxiety but a digestible framing of Martin Heidegger’s rationale on the subject. Let’s dive in.

Most of modern thought treats anxiety as a problem to solve or a symptom to eliminate. Heidegger rejects that thought. He reframes anxiety as disclosure. Not something wrong with you, but something revealing what you care most about. Heidegger says that anxiety shows us that nothing external is holding us up, meaning is not guaranteed, and we are responsible for who we become (echoing Dostoevsky from yesterday).

So Heidegger asserts that anxiety reveals being, not pathology. Let’s separate fear from anxiety for a second. Every fear has an object (an exam, a bill, a person, etc.). Anxiety has no object. It reveals the groundlessness of existence itself. In a state of anxiety, the world loses its obviousness and we’re cast into uncertainty. That’s not a sickness. That’s raw clarity without distraction.

Heidegger claims that we pursue distractions, however. He says we flee anxiety by way of busyness, entertainment, social dialogue, and other noise. We don’t distract ourselves because our anxieties are false worries, but because they’re too honest. So distraction doesn’t serve as a rest from anxiety, but an avoidance from responsibility.

So when it comes to authenticity, Heidegger would assert that it’s not self-expression. Rather, it’s owning one’s existence without hiding behind the roles you use to distract yourself. So, if self-help lingo tells us “calm your anxiety so you can function,” then Heidegger would say, “Listen to your anxiety so you can exist.”

Bring to mind a moment of anxiety.

Ask yourself:

“That in the face of which one has anxiety is Being-in-the-world as such.
What anxiety is anxious about is nothing ready-to-hand within the world.
…
Anxiety individualizes Dasein and thus discloses it as ‘solus ipse.’
This existential ‘solipsism,’ however, is so far from transposing an isolated subject-thing into the harmless vacuum of a worldless occurrence that in an extreme sense it brings Dasein face to face with the world as world, and thus brings it face to face with itself as Being-in-the-world.”
— Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, §40 (Anxiety)

Think about what is bringing you face-to-face with the world. Anxiety isn’t a fear of a thing, it’s confrontation with existence itself. Heidegger realized this, and it made him one of the most famous existentialists on Earth.

He says “Anxiety individualizes Dasein…” meaning that Heidegger pulls the self out of “the They” and forces personal responsibility. Coming “face to face with itself” is authenticity, not hiding behind roles, routines, or norms.

Munch on that for today. Anxiety isn’t pathology, it’s existential clarity. A confrontation with your anxiety might bring you a higher sense of meaning, purpose, and clarity in an uncertain world. Come on back tomorrow for another steaming hot plate of Thought Breakfast!

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Thank you for reading along with us today! If you enjoy this content, and want to start your days grounded in thought and mindfulness, I suggest you have a seat at our table! Smash that button below to check out more editions and subscribe!

Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast