• yesterday
This lecture explores generalized anxiety disorder through a philosophical and evolutionary lens, examining why some individuals experience paralyzing anxiety despite stable surroundings. It delves into the roots of anxiety as an instinctive response to life's risks, linking it to survival mechanisms used by early humans in planning for seasonal changes and resource management. The discussion emphasizes anxiety as a reaction to modern slow-moving threats, such as health and social dynamics, urging listeners to reassess toxic social environments and their impact on personal choices. The speaker highlights the importance of self-awareness and proactive decision-making in combating anxiety, concluding with a call for reflection and action to foster a healthier, more fulfilling life.

GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND AUDIOBOOK!

https://peacefulparenting.com/

Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!

Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material, as well as targeted AIs for Real-Time Relationships, BitCoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-Ins. Don't miss the private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!

See you soon!

https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Transcript
00:00All right. A question, a question? Dear
00:05Stephanator, I never catch the live shows live so I can't post live questions
00:10but I'm a longtime listener, subscriber and donor. The work that you do is truly
00:16priceless. I'm interested in your philosophical take on generalized
00:20anxiety disorder or GAD. Often people with GAD have childhood trauma etc but
00:26often everything seems fine yet they're still paralyzed by anxious thoughts. To
00:32me, generalized anxiety disorder seems to basically be too much focus on the
00:36inherent risks of life. My question is why? We all have the same fears slash
00:41risks of catastrophe, losing those we love, sickness etc. Why do some people
00:45get crippled by these facts of life and most people just deal with them? I would
00:51really appreciate the Stephanator's thoughts donation coming of course. Kind
00:54regards from name. Well that's a very interesting question. Well that's a very
01:01interesting question. So one of the big challenges of, and this of course is just
01:07my amateur opinion, I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, have no
01:11capacity to diagnose anyone, this is all just my nonsense opinions for what
01:15they're worth. But anxiety is designed for what? Anxiety is designed to lure us
01:25or propel us into action based upon low stimulus. So anxiety is a subset
01:33of fight-or-flight. So for instance before the days of GPS somebody would
01:40tell you you know turn take the third left and blah blah blah blah blah and go
01:44up here and you'd get all these sort of written or verbal directions and you'd
01:47be driving along and you'd start to get this uneasy feeling. The uneasy feeling
01:52of course was, did I go too far? And you just get this sort of growing
01:57uneasy feeling and then at some point you probably would turn back and loop
02:02and so on right try and find the right thing. Anxiety is when the dangers are
02:10subtle and require forethought. So we would not say that someone has anxiety
02:18if they're hiking and turn around and they're being stalked by a mountain lion
02:23right that's not that's not anxiety that's fear that's fight-or-flight right.
02:27So anxiety is a subset of the fight-or-flight mechanism and it is
02:33designed to apply negative stimuli to you until you wake up to and deal with
02:42the danger to you. That is subtle. So winter of course is the big test. Winter
02:49is the big big big test. So winter is do you have enough food to last through the
02:58cold months when your capacity for getting food is scarce you can't rely on
03:03hunting. Have you figured out or stored enough food to last through the winter?
03:09Have you domesticated the animals that you need that being good health? Have you
03:14pickled and jammed and stored and breaded and whatever it is that you can
03:17do? And of course those people who did not develop this capacity for anxiety
03:27well they died right they died and they died in horrendous ways and they died of
03:36course of starvation and they were so panicked that they would attack those
03:39around them and this is sort of where the grasshopper and the ant comes from.
03:44So anxiety is when the danger is distant and you can do something about it right
03:54so we have anxiety about death. Death is distant at least we hope so and we can
03:59do something about it right we can eat well we can exercise we can not smoke
04:05not drink we can maintain our social life and be happy and do good in the
04:12world like all the things that make us happier and healthier and less likely to
04:16die at least in the short run. So we can do something about that if we let's say
04:25if we are a woman and we are our standards are too high or we are unable
04:31to settle down because the men we want don't want us back and so on right.
04:37I've always said this about the male approach in general is to start at the
04:42very top you know when you start wanting to ask girls out you start wanting to
04:45date you start at the very top and then you work your way down until you find a
04:52woman who will who will love you or to put it another way in my history you
04:57start as a teenager with the shallowest of intentions and then you settle on a
05:01woman who's truly virtuous when you get older but if you are a woman who's got
05:07you've got a shorter runway for having kids so if you are a woman and you want
05:15to settle down but you're not able to settle down because you keep rejecting
05:20guys as being unfit you will start to get anxiety and of course a lot of the
05:26modern world is characterized by women managing their anxiety because they keep
05:31rejecting men because they're trained to reject men by the powers that be for
05:35some pretty obvious reasons right so a lot of this is managing that kind of
05:40anxiety and that mental health those mental health issues have really flowed
05:45into the mainstream right a man who is not getting his life moving of course
05:52I've had a lot of calls with people and with men about this over the last 20
05:56years you know the men who are like you know I'm in my middle eight twenties I'm
06:00just not getting my life started I'm kind of stuck what should I do well
06:03that's something you can do something about right you can do something about
06:09that so anxiety is for the slow-moving disasters that you can do something
06:15about so generalized anxiety disorders again in my idiot amateur humble opinion
06:22would be where there's something in your life that is a slow-moving disaster
06:27right like aging out of the gene pool reproduction race like not having enough
06:33for winter and even in the shorter term you can't wait until you're starving to
06:38go hunting because when you're starving you don't have much energy right so you
06:43you have to say gee you know we're gonna need some food for the tribe so I'd
06:49better go hunting sooner rather than later you can't go hunting right after
06:54you've eaten because you're too full but you don't want to wait till you're
06:57starving so you know you've got to balance these things out so the slow
07:01moving disasters and slow-moving disasters that you can do something
07:08about in my opinion is the source of anxiety not the clinical term but just
07:14generalized modern anxiety the West of course is going through a slow-motion
07:20disaster it is everyone's opinion and I'm not going to argue with this in any
07:27particular detail but it is everyone's opinion how much can actually be done
07:33about this slow-moving disaster because the slower the disaster the slower
07:41moving the disaster the more momentum it tends to have and so at some point you
07:47just have to accept your fate right so there's you have all spring and summer
07:54and fall to prepare enough food for the winter months right you have all of that
07:59time and that's a slow that's a slow disaster right and because it's a slow
08:05disaster what that means is that it's really bad when it when it happens right
08:11and so if it takes generations of antinatalist programming and self-hating
08:18programming to make people not want to have kids and and hate themselves well
08:23how do you how do you undo all that I know the there's a momentum to these
08:27kinds of things that is really really tough is really tough so I think we're
08:35all aware that there's kind of a slow-moving disaster that's rolling
08:38along and how much can be done about it is anyone's guess and thought and it's
08:45not something that can really be defined from the outside because who knows what
08:49great and powerful communicators there are in the world who can make a
08:53difference that is for time fate circumstances and choice to reveal now
09:00there's something about the modern world that is really fascinating about anxiety
09:06and in general when I've talked to people who have anxiety what's happened
09:13is I've asked them what negative influences there are in their life that
09:19they can do something about so if you have anxiety because you dread going to
09:24work because you've got some psycho boss well you can do something about that
09:28right you can confront your boss you can maybe try to get him fired you can
09:34change jobs you can become an entrepreneur like this tons of stuff
09:37that you can do with regards to all of this and you're not not passive right I
09:43think if you've ever been around people on their deathbeds you know once you
09:48know you're not getting back up again there is a certain amount of accepting
09:52your fate thing right or you know there's a great Seinfeld where George
09:58Costanza is talking to an older guy and the older guy says like the George is
10:03like you know you you you're so close to death how isn't it driving you crazy
10:07your life is all behind you and the older guy is like hey man I'm just
10:11happy for every day that I have right and they're great there are great
10:16consolations and benefits to getting older life is not so cruel that the
10:21advantages only accrue to the young I mean aesthetically I understand that
10:25young people look better in general but there are great benefits to getting to
10:32getting older some I wouldn't try it for sure so when you are in your deathbed
10:38then there's really nothing you can do about it right it's really nothing you
10:43can do about it so you you just accept your fate to some degree I mean some
10:48people will rage against the dying of the light as the old poem goes but some
10:51people will accept their fate but in the modern world there's something that's
10:56really quite fascinating which has to do with anxiety so we evolved of course in
11:01small tribes that we could not escape we could not leave we really had no choice
11:05you think of some Inuit tribe up in the frozen tundra of the far north they
11:12could not change their social environment they could not move and go
11:18to the city right in sort of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago
11:21as some Scottish clan up in the Falklands sorry up in the Hebrides out of
11:29Hebrides Falklands sorry quite a different place some tribe up the outer
11:33Hebrides the Hebrides they could not change their options this is one of the
11:37things that I was writing about in Just Poor is do we have a choice in our
11:43social social circumstances throughout most of human history and of course the
11:47answer is we did not have a choice in our social circumstances for 99.9999
11:52percent of human history we were born into a tribe but we were stuck with the
11:56tribe which you know doesn't is not all negative right there's a certain amount
12:00of predictability and comfort in all of that so we did not have the choice
12:06to change our social circumstances now in the modern world we do have the
12:13choice to change our social circumstances and that is mind-blowing
12:18that is something which we are not evolved for but we are alert to right
12:26like we're not evolved to use tablets or screens or whatever but we do so we are
12:34constantly scanning for slow-moving disasters that we can do something about
12:41constantly scanning for slow-moving disasters we can do something about and
12:47if you've ever talked to people who are caught in these slow-moving disasters
12:52and I've talked to people over the years it did they sort of say it's like
12:55getting caught in this industrial machinery that takes five years to kill
12:58you or whatever like it's really terrible so we are constantly scanning
13:03for slow-moving disasters we can do something about and in general if we
13:07can't do anything about it then the anxiety level tends to diminish if we
13:13can't do anything about it if we think we can do something about it but we
13:18can't then that's a failure to adjust to reality so we can do something about the
13:25quality of our aging but we can't do anything about aging I mean other than
13:30die right so we can't stop the passage of time but we can work reasonably well
13:37and hard to ensure that our happiness or comfort level over the course of sailing
13:44through time is as positive as possible so if somebody is tortured by aging as a
13:53whole like they just tortured and upset by aging as a whole that would be not
13:59mental health right because you can't do anything about the fact that you're
14:02aging but somebody who's tortured about feeling weak and infirm in their old age
14:08who doesn't eat well and exercise well there's something they can do but you
14:14can do something about being unwell in your old age which is eat well exercise
14:21you know do all of the various health practices that can help ensure that
14:26you're aging is as positive as possible right so with regards to social life if
14:32you are embedded in a corrupt familial social friendship circle and these
14:40things are all combined right if you have a corrupt and immoral family of
14:46origin then moral people will not want to be in that environment and so your
14:52friends and your social circle as a whole will conform like you know the old
14:58salmon in the swift current they're all swimming in the same line because that's
15:01the corruption that is occurring in your life and so everybody in your environment
15:06will be corrupt now of course through almost all of human history and
15:13certainly what we have adapted to you couldn't change that you couldn't change
15:17that so because you couldn't change it you just kind of rolled with it you it
15:23was mental mentally healthy or at least more mentally healthy than the
15:26alternative to just accept that right this is who these people are I'll learn
15:32to love it or at least not hate it because I have no alternative I can't
15:35swap out to some other tribe I can't change my circumstances social
15:39environment whatever right however in the modern world and you can you can
15:46start this whenever you like of course a big example would be fleeing Europe
15:51for America right so you could change your whole social environment and this
15:56arose with the free market that you could rely on your productivity rather
16:00than their blood ties in order to make a living you didn't have to work the
16:06family farm you didn't have to work the family contacts you could go to America
16:10with the capacity for hard work and make a go of it on your own so the free
16:17market freed us from corrupt social and familial situations so the slow-moving
16:25disaster is for a lot of people if you have a corrupt family of origin which
16:32means that your entire social circle is corrupt to some degree because
16:37non-corrupt people won't want to hang out with that in that situation the
16:41slow-moving disaster is you don't escape when you can right you don't escape when
16:50you can so again it's important to know the difference can you change it right I
16:55can't change aging I can't change the quality of my aging so the slow-moving
17:02disaster I think for a lot of people in the modern world in the West in
17:08particular and this is outside of the sort of economic moral political and
17:13generalized social slow-moving disasters but in in terms of the personal life if
17:18you could get out if you can get out of a corrupt environment but you don't that
17:25is the biggest most dangerous slow-moving disaster that you can do the
17:30most about so if you are embedded in a corrupt immoral or you know openly
17:37sadistic or even worse subtly sadistic family structure then the slow-moving
17:42disaster is that you have friends in that environment you date in that
17:47environment and you are shielded from quality people and therefore you are
17:51shielded from virtue love integrity all of that kind of good stuff right and the
17:57slow-moving disaster is you end up marrying and having children in this
18:02corrupt environment and you never escape and you can this is one of the big
18:08controversial things that occurred very quickly after I started doing what I do
18:12which is to remind people that they have the choice they can change their social
18:20familial friendship dating environments they can change it which is you know
18:25kind of a deep shock corruption always maintains itself through monopoly
18:32corruption always maintains itself through monopoly teachers in schools in
18:40government schools teachers teach what parents really don't want the kids to
18:46learn but because the teachers have a monopoly on the tax dollars and often on
18:51the minds of the students as a whole because of that the teachers can do
18:55whatever they want monopolies don't have to provide good services monopolies
18:59can skim off the top so corruption always maintains itself through monopoly
19:04and the free market punishes corruption because corruption is economically
19:10inefficient as long as it maintains a monopoly corruption is efficient right
19:16but when corruption is subjected to the free market it is no longer efficient
19:22right so in families it's the same thing parents who are abusive harm their
19:29children because they perceive a monopoly they perceive that they have a
19:33monopoly over their children and of course when the children were children
19:39the parents did have a monopoly but the question is when the children become
19:42adults do the children have a choice over who they see and this is one of the
19:47themes really that I have been hammering is to bring the free market to the
19:51family right to to because statism rises from the monopoly if you have a
19:57perceived monopoly in authority in the family then you will have a monopoly
20:03with perceived authority in society of course right this is the state is the
20:08shadow cast by the coercive monopoly in so many families so reminding people
20:13that they have a choice is important so I think that people have anxiety at the
20:21moment because they are not trapped within their the family and social
20:28structures and friendship structures and extended family structures that they're
20:31born into they're not trapped in those not you can go anywhere you can do
20:35anything right you know there's this meme like you can just do things you can
20:40just do things you can just you can just move and you can change your entire
20:44social and familial structure if you want and think the slow-moving disaster
20:49is if you don't want to spend the rest of your life you know having as
20:55miserable time as miserable the time as you had as a kid if you did then you
21:00have to change and you don't have a lot of time for that because if you want to
21:06have a wife and kids you want to have a husband and kids then you have to sort
21:09all of that stuff out before you get married but your parents condition the
21:19available pool of potential marriage partners your parents condition and
21:24define that right this is something I've been saying for a long time and I'll
21:28talk about it more this Wednesday but your parents define the pool of
21:37available partners for marriage and children if your parents are corrupt
21:44quality people will not be around them which means that you can only choose
21:49from a pool of corrupt people or broken people to marry your parents are the
21:56gatekeepers of who you get to marry and if you want to marry let's say you want
22:03to marry a woman very different from your mother if you want to marry a
22:07woman very different from your mother you will not be able to if your mother
22:12is still significantly embedded in your life because a woman who is very
22:17different from your mother if your mother is corrupt and you want a
22:19virtuous woman a virtuous woman will not want to spend the next 50 years around
22:24your mother and have your mother influential in the raising of her
22:27children so the one anxiety can be well if I keep hanging around with an
22:34unreformed and corrupt family of origin then I'm gonna end up dating somebody
22:41who's corrupt and both my life and my children's life will be significantly
22:47harmed if not outright ruined so there's can you do something about this corrupt
22:54environment that you happen to be born in throughout most of human history no
22:57in the modern world yes and having made the leap myself I have nothing to do
23:04with anyone from my former life and it has been gosh well yes almost 20 years
23:11right and while I do have some occasional nostalgia I do look back with
23:16great relief at the choices that I have made and I want that for you as well so
23:22just to sum up anxiety is about slow-moving disasters that we can do
23:26something about whether it's winter ill health or the corruption in our social
23:33circle you gotta listen to your anxiety and it's trying to tell you something
23:37it's trying to tell you that there's a very slow-moving danger that you can do
23:41something about and you've got to scan your life to find out what it is
23:46identify it and then by God act free-demand.com slash donate hey there's an
23:52action you can take free-demand.com slash donate really appreciate it your
23:55support is most most treasured and appreciated have yourselves a wonderful
23:59day I'll talk to you soon bye