Angst
Imagine yourself approaching the edge of an enormous cliff.
Your eyes maintain a forward view, but the boredom you earn from the familiar horizon compels you to look downward, past the cliff. As you do, you get that jittery feeling. Your stomach inherits that nervous rush. Your feet turn all sour. You pause, then take an unhurried step closer. After getting a feel for your surroundings and finding that there is nothing to trip on or no one to push you off the edge, you take a second to think.
“What if I fell off?”
After realizing the question is at least hopefully irrelevant you disregard the idea of plummeting down the side of the rock face.
Now you don’t exactly articulate it, but you do think about the possibility of throwing yourself off. Because…well its simple. You are entirely capable.
Nothing is holding you back. You experience this freedom- it makes you anxious.
You feel the slight fear in your legs because you have the ability to make them jump off the cliff and you know it too. You can either stand still on the edge or jump. Nothing has predetermined this for you.
That is scary.
This is a classic model for what is referred to as Existential Dread
The natural freedom we experience as human beings in this universe can become a double-edged sword for some people- myself included. On one hand you can enjoy the control you have by simply allowing yourself to make decisions, but on the other hand you might see that there is no preset outcome for the decisions you make, and naturally, its quite possible to make a mess of things.
I suppose this means that despite this angst you feel, despite the storm of choices raining down on your mind, the most you can do is make the choice you can live with.
