The Meaning Of Despair Within The Realm of Fear And Anxiety – 101

Anxiety is a state in which a being is aware of its possible non-being.

So, what is being? Answer: all we do, all we are, all we’re to become and plan to become.

Fear is placed on an object – there is an object of fear – very tangible. Love can conquer the known.

Anxiety – its object is the negation of every object.

Despair is the ultimate or “boundary-line” situation.

The pain of despair is that a being is aware of itself as unable to affirm itself because of the power of non-being.

It wants to get rid of itself—and it cannot!

In view of this character of despair it is understandable that all human life can be interpreted as a continuous attempt to avoid despair … this is mostly successful.

The COMMON DENOMINATOR of all theories on anxiety…

Anxiety is the awareness of unresolved conflicts between structural elements of the personality. (The tension between drives, perception and experience.)

Courage does not remove anxiety…

Since anxiety is existential, it cannot be removed but courage takes the anxiety of non-being into itself.

Courage is self-affirmation “in spite of,” namely in spite of being.

He who acts courageously takes, in his self-affirmation, the anxiety of non-being upon himself. INTO and UPON are metaphorical.

Anxiety turns us toward courage… because the other alternative is despair.

Courage resists despair by taking anxiety into itself.

The antithesis of courage is Neurosis, which is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being.

He who is NOT capable of a powerful self-affirmation in spite of the anxiety of non-being is forced into a weak, reduced self-affirmation.

… he affirms something which is less than his essential or potential being!

Reference: Paul Tillich, The Courage To Be, 1952.