"On Anxiety" by Rollo May

"Anxiety is the experience of Being affirming itself against Nonbeing."

Rollo May

The Meaning of Anxiety
1977 edition

Anxiety is essential to the human condition. For a personal example, I experience anxiety before every lecture even though I have given hundreds of them. One day, tired of enduring this tension, which seemed so unnecessary, and with the help of a strong resolve, I proceeded to condition myself out of the anxiety. That evening I was perfectly relaxed and free from tension when I mounted the platform. But I made a poor speech. Missing were the tension, the sense of challenge, the zest of the race horse at the starting gate—those states of mind and body in which normal anxiety expresses itself.

The confrontation with anxiety can (note the word can and not will) relieve us from boredom, sharpen our sensitivity, and assure the presence of the tension that is necessary to preserve human existence. The presence of anxiety indicates vitality. Like fever, it testifies that a struggle is going on within the personality. So long as this struggle continues, a constructive solution is possible. When there is no longer any anxiety, the struggle is over and depression may ensue. This is why Kierkegaard held that anxiety is our “best teacher.” He pointed out that whenever a new possibility emerged, anxiety would be there as well. These considerations point to a topic that has barely been touched in contemporary research—namely, the relation between anxiety on the one hand and creativity, originality, and intelligence on the other.

“The more original a human being is, the deeper is his anxiety.”

Soren Kierkegaard