On Anxiety 1

"When I see a man anxious, I say, 'What does this man want? If he did not want something which is not in his power, how could he be anxious?'

"For this reason a lute player when he is singing by himself has no anxiety, but when he enters the theater, he is anxious even if he has a good voice and plays well on the lute; for he not only wishes to sing well, but also to obtain applause: but this is not in his power. Accordingly, where he has skill, there he has confidence.

"Bring any single person who knows nothing of music, and the musician does not care for him. But in the matter where a man knows nothing and has not been practiced, there he is anxious. What matter is this? He knows not what a crowd is or what the praise of a crowd is. However he has learned to strike the lowest chord and the highest; but what the praise of the many is, and what power it has in life he neither knows nor has he thought about it. Hence he must of necessity tremble and grow pale." . . .

--Epictetus, Discourses 2.13 (trans Long)

 Anxiety, like any form of worry or fear, can sometimes be an instinctive response, and it can sometimes be the result of a deliberate choice, but in any case, the ability and willingness to manage our own judgments is the key to facing anxiety.

 Begin simply with one of the first principles of Stoicism. If what I want is within my power, then I need never worry about gaining or losing it. If what I want is outside of my power, I will indeed worry, because I will have pursued unreliable things.

This has nothing to do, of course, with simply taking the easy route, or resting upon my laurels. To measure my life by what is within my power is hardly easy, and it is grounded in my actions, not my circumstances. I become anxious because I am surrendering myself.  Only a casting off of such dependence can lead me to a judgment with no anxiety. If I have power over what is truly good for me, I hardly need to be anxious.

The example of a musician is a wonderful one. We often perform our tasks very well in private, until we are suddenly faced with an audience. Now the only difference is in the perception of what needs to be done. Is it my responsibility to act with excellence, or to impress the spectators? If I can be confident in the former, I need hardly worry about the latter.

In my college years, I learned to distinguish between those who loved to play music for the sake of beauty itself, and those who loved to perform music to impress others. I almost always noticed that the first dedicated themselves to skill, while the second dedicated themselves to appearances. As in music, so in life, and our anxiety about what others may think will come and go depending upon which sort of persons we are.

Written in 11/1998

Image: Edvard Munch, Anxiety (1894)