The Crisis of Existence and Our Daily Anxiety

The Crisis of Existence and Our Daily Anxiety (Part 1)

If we look closely at the heavy anxiety or deep unease we feel in our daily lives, we notice something strange. Usually, we think this unease comes from intense work pressure, traffic jams, or tomorrow's deadlines. We treat our mental state like a routine checkup. We feel that if we just find the immediate cause, we can easily find a quick solution.

This tendency to look for easy answers is very normal. We like to put everything into neat little boxes. Finding a logical explanation gives us a sense of comfort. We love to think that the problem is created by some external situation and that we will feel better overnight if the situation changes. But when we enter the deep world of the human subconscious and existential crisis, this comforting framework completely falls apart.

If we dig into Ernest Becker's groundbreaking book "The Denial of Death" and various psychological research papers, we find that many of our mental or social problems are not ordinary issues. They actually stem from a much deeper crisis of existence. When we start asking "why" and "how" about the human condition, we discover that our most primitive fear, the fear of death, secretly controls our daily habits, our relationships, and our entire mental state like a puppet master.

To understand this whole mechanism, we first need to look at the thoughts of the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Interestingly, he was not a psychologist. Yet, he understood the human mind much more accurately than many modern scientists. His main focus was dread or anxiety. And the most striking thing is that he gave this anxiety a brilliant name. He called it the dizziness of freedom.

This concept of the dizziness of freedom is incredibly powerful. Let us imagine a scenario. Someone is standing right at the edge of the roof of a high rise building, looking down. A terrible fear is working inside them. We usually think the fear is about slipping and falling. We think it is a fear of gravity. But Kierkegaard tells a different story. The real fear is not about falling. The real fear is the sudden realization that the freedom to jump down at that very moment is entirely in that person's own hands. This realization of infinite freedom is what is truly terrifying.

This analogy perfectly captures the core conflict of human existence. On one hand, we have our infinite imagination. We can think of anything and travel to any corner of the universe in our minds. But on the other hand, our physical body is strictly limited. This body of flesh and blood gets sick, grows old, and will certainly be destroyed one day.

We are constantly trying to find a balance between these two opposing truths. It is an endless struggle between the biological limits of the synapse and the boundless nature of the soul. Unable to handle the heavy weight of this extreme freedom and the underlying fear of death, humans do something Kierkegaard called "shut upness" or withdrawing into oneself.

Think about the busy daily routines we create or how we scroll through social media for hours. These are actually emotional bunkers. We intentionally lock ourselves inside these bunkers so we do not have to spend a single moment thinking about the burden of that absolute freedom or the ultimate truth that our biological clock is ticking. We are constantly running away from our true selves. And this continuous escape is exactly what leaves us feeling so deeply exhausted.

The Crisis of Existence and Our Daily Anxiety (Part 2)

We might think that philosophers and modern psychologists who studied the human mind deeply had no fear of death. But history tells us a very different story. When we turn the pages of history, we face a surprising reality. Sigmund Freud, the man who wanted to explain everything about the human subconscious, was actually terrified of dying.

This personal struggle of Freud is one of the biggest ironies in the history of psychology. His fear of death, or death phobia, was so intense that he could not even bear anyone discussing the topic around him, let alone talk about it publicly. It is hard to believe that this man spent years exploring all the dark corners of the mind.

If we look at the analysis in Ernest Becker's book, we find an incredible story. Freud had a brilliant young student named Carl Jung. The fact is, Freud would sometimes literally faint when Jung was around. It might sound like a physical illness at first. But the deeper reason is that Jung represented the future to Freud. It was a bright future where Freud himself would no longer be alive. Jung's youth and brilliance constantly reminded Freud of his own mortality.

Why would a genius and the father of psychology act like this? It is because Freud subconsciously wanted to build his science of psychoanalysis as a "Hero Project." A hero project is a human effort to believe that we are not just biological animals. It is a way to convince ourselves that our lives have a cosmic meaning.

Freud wanted to achieve a kind of immortality through his work. If we look at the bigger picture, when great scientists, industrialists, or political leaders try to build empires or make history, it is not always out of pure greatness. It is often just a brilliant shield to deny the harsh reality that, as biological creatures, we will all die one day.

Accepting this truth is perhaps the hardest thing for the brightest minds. They might wonder how they can just turn into dust after writing so many books or building such vast empires. This realization was eating Freud from the inside. No matter how many degrees or mountains of knowledge we gather, at the end of the day, we remain physiological animals. Whenever we want to forget this, we use our intellectual achievements as armor. Freud wanted his science to save him from the fear of death. But when Jung arrived as the heir to that science, Freud's armor broke down.

This brings up a huge question. Not everyone has the ability to invent something groundbreaking like Freud. What do ordinary people like you and me do when we do not have a massive hero project of our own? In our search for the "how" and "why" of human behavior, we hit one of its darkest and most complex areas. When a person does not have a hero project, they run to other people for protection. In psychology, this process is called "Transference."

Understanding the mechanism of transference is very important. In the first step, a person feels terrified about their own insignificance and the fear of death. They feel extremely tiny in this vast universe. In the second step, they find someone else. It could be a charismatic political leader, a religious guru, or a romantic partner. They see this person as highly confident and infinitely powerful. In the third step, the ordinary person projects all the power, wealth, and magic of the universe onto that leader or partner, practically turning them into a god.

It is like using another human being as a human shield. Subconsciously, the person thinks that if they stay in the shadow of this powerful figure, join their group, or drown in their love, death and emptiness will never touch them. We turn someone else into a god just to escape the responsibility of our own existence.

This deep desire gives birth to the "nexus of unfreedom" or a complex web of dependence. People willingly accept slavery just to feel a little safe, because taking responsibility for your own life means taking responsibility for your own death.

This mechanism answers so many questions about the world around us. It explains why people stay trapped in toxic relationships for years. It also explains why dangerous political ideologies get so many blind followers. They do not actually love that ideology or that person. They just want to cover up their own fear of death and emptiness. That toxic partner or dictator simply provides them with a "system of meaning."

The Crisis of Existence and Our Daily Anxiety (Part 3)

When we think about how this illusion or transference controls the balance of power in society and the state, it is truly terrifying. Millions of people hand over their inner strength and power to a single leader. That leader becomes all powerful, and the ordinary people become completely dependent. It is a massive collective illusion. People think they are chasing a great goal, but in reality, they are just running away from their own fears.

So, the whole situation feels like a giant maze. We see that hiding behind our work or a hero project does not work. It failed for Freud. Blindly following someone else or making them a human shield is also extremely harmful. It creates a kind of slavery where a person loses their own true self. Does this mean there is no real way to escape this terrifying mental emptiness?

Right in this place of despair, Otto Rank brings a ray of hope with his theory of creative solutions. Otto Rank was a student of Freud. But at a certain point, he realized that the human mind cannot be explained just by biology and animal instincts. He moved away from his teacher's strict biological view. Rank believed that humans do not just have an animal instinct to survive. We also have a strong desire to build, a deep need to create.

According to Rank, society is basically divided into two groups. On one side, we have people who get trapped inside their character armor. He called them neurotic people. They are not actually crazy, but they are incredibly terrified. They fear both life and death so much that they live a paralyzed existence. They are afraid to take risks in life, and they also cannot accept death.

On the exact opposite side, we have the creative people. Rank does not say that creative people are above fear. They definitely have fears too. But the difference is that they do not get paralyzed by it. They use that exact same fear and inner restlessness as fuel to build something new. Art, literature, or philosophy are not just hobbies to pass the time. According to Rank, they are artistic weapons to fight against death. The only real cure for this crisis of human life is to become a creator of meaning.

You might have a big doubt here. Is Rank's idea of being creative really an ultimate cure? Is it not just another beautiful, romantic name for Freud's hero project?

On the surface, both might look the same. But if we connect Kierkegaard's ideas with Rank's ideas, the difference becomes clear. The real difference lies in the purpose and the realization. The main problem with the hero project was that it wanted to deny death. A hero project is a type of denial. But Rank's idea of creativity does not deny death. It is a way to live a meaningful life alongside fear, without being paralyzed. It means the creative person knows they will die one day, but they keep creating anyway.

Let us use an analogy. It is like building a beautiful sandcastle on the beach. The person building it knows very well that the tide will come in a little while and wash it away. They have this knowledge. But they do not stop building the castle because of that. This is not a way to escape. It is using your willpower to build a life that is significant, even if it is temporary. Here we see a wonderful creative struggle between our biological limits and our boundless thoughts, beautifully bridging the gap between the synapse and the soul.

It is not about becoming immortal. It is about knowing that my existence is limited. But within this limited time, I will create something that is meaningful to me. Accepting this truth is facing Kierkegaard's dizziness of freedom with courage. It is standing on the roof and enjoying the distant sky instead of jumping off. When we can accept this truth, we can finally break free from the illusion of depending on others or hiding in their shadows.

As an eternal student, the main goal is to break through the web of these illusions. Instead of trying to fill our emptiness through others, we must build a meaningful world through our own creativity.

But standing in our modern world today, we have to think about one final thing. Otto Rank said that practicing art and creativity is the only real way to conquer the fear of death and live meaningfully. But what are we actually doing right now? When Artificial Intelligence is drawing pictures for us, writing poems for us, or making songs in a moment, are we not handing over our only primitive weapon for survival to machines?

If we completely surrender this right to creativity, this joy of building sandcastles, to machines, where will this existential tendency to shut up lead us in the future? Will we stand on the roof of that high rise building and lose our very last weapon to face the emptiness? This question truly forces us to think deeply. And through this continuous questioning of "why" and "how," our search for meaning goes on.

References

1. Becker, Ernest. (1973). The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press. The core source for this discussion, specifically chapters five through eight, which analyze the ideas of Kierkegaard, Freud, and Otto Rank.
2. Kierkegaard, Søren. (1844). The Concept of Anxiety. The source for the concept of existential "dread" and the "dizziness of freedom."
3. Rank, Otto. (1932). Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development. The primary text for understanding the "need to create" and "character armor."
4. Rank, Otto. (1936). Will Therapy and Truth and Reality. Discusses the human "will" and the struggle to create meaning in a finite life.
5. Yalom, Irvin D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. A modern psychological reference on how the fear of death creates anxiety in the human mind.
6. Freud, Sigmund. (1920). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Relevant for understanding the conflict between life and death instincts in Freud’s own theories.