The semester just ended, and while it seems my GPA will land in a favorable place, a persistent restlessness had already taken hold of me. I was struggling in my Spanish class, and that single course cast a shadow over the entire term. As a result, the confidence I had carried from last semester unraveled, and I found myself unable to give proper attention to anything beyond my academic responsibilities.

Experiencing this angst as a philosopher led me to seek a contemporary exploration of the feeling. My local library happened to have a copy of Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide by Samir Chopra. With Chopra’s book as my guide, I reflect on how I once related to anxiety, how certain philosophers helped reframe that experience, and how I now think about anxiety in the context of modern life. What follows is not a neat solution, but a reorientation—one that makes space for anxiety without letting it rule.

In an increasingly digital world—where surveillance, performance, and overstimulation are constant—anxiety has become the default state for many. The idea of relief from that state is understandably seductive. Buddhism offers a prescription for this kind of suffering, naming it dukkha—a term that encompasses not just pain, but deep dissatisfaction and existential unease. The path begins with the recognition that life is suffering and ends, ideally, in liberation from it. While I respect the clarity of this framework, I find its promise of transcendence ultimately unattainable. To be alive is to be anxious. To shed that condition entirely would be to shed something fundamentally human.

Anxiety isn’t an obstacle to living a virtuous life—it’s a signal that we have choices, and that those choices matter. It’s the emotional weight of freedom, not a malfunction of the mind. The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote that “our greatest blessing, free will, comes with a burden of anxiety,” and that we should be “happy to bear it.” For Kierkegaard, Confronting this burden is how we move closer to the task of self-actualization.

Both Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche warn that life is full of distractions and roles that pull us away from the work of becoming who we truly are. For Nietzsche, anxiety emerges when we are living inauthentically—when we betray who we truly are. Kierkegaard echoes this sentiment, describing the despair of “being someone else” as the “sickness unto death.” In a world constantly nudging us toward conformity, both thinkers urge us to stand against the forces that shape us into what we are not. As Nietzsche put it, “We must accept our identities, our stations in life, our anxieties—as parts of ourselves.” For Kierkegaard, the difference is existential: neurotics retreat to safety, sacrificing freedom; healthy individuals move forward in spite of anxiety.

Another existential thinker, Paul Tillich, echoes Kierkegaard’s view—calling anxiety “a perennial companion.” But Tillich goes further: he sees courage not just as endurance, but as an act of spiritual affirmation—“our affirmation of life” in the face of anxiety. Anxiety, for Tillich, is not proof of a broken spirit—it is a sign of consciousness. “Anxiety reminds us we are alive.” For Tillich, even the simple act of living with anxiety is an expression of courage—a quiet, daily affirmation that life is still worth moving through.

While anxiety, on one hand, makes us aware of our freedom and the burden of limitless possibilities, it also arises from the external pressures society places on us—constraints that encroach upon that very freedom. Naturally, one cannot talk about the society in the United States without mentioning capitalism. In this capitalist system, we’re expected to find purpose and pride in labor—but we don’t control what we produce, how we produce it, or who benefits from it. Karl Marx saw this for what it was: alienation. He argued that the worker becomes separated not just from the product of their labor, but from their own humanity. We become alienated from our work, from others, and from ourselves. That alienation generates a deep kind of anxiety—not because we’re doing something wrong, but because the system separates us from what makes life meaningful.

To make things more confusing, society tells us to be “authentic,” while also rewarding conformity and punishing divergence. We’re supposed to be productive but also fulfilled. Unique but marketable. Self-expressive but never disruptive. These contradictions don’t just confuse us—they shape our emotional lives. When we inevitably fall short of these opposing ideals, we internalize the failure. We develop what Nietzsche might call a “bad conscience”—a moral anxiety that emerges not from actual wrongdoing, but from our inability to satisfy incoherent expectations.

These contradictions are not accidental—they’re functional. The philosopher Herbert Marcuse argued that anxiety becomes politically useful when it keeps us self-monitoring, uncertain, and passive. In a society structured around productivity and compliance, anxiety ensures that we blame ourselves for not thriving in a system that was never meant to be livable. As Marcuse put it, “A choice that is not visible is not a choice at all.” What looks like freedom is often just a preselected path disguised as agency.

Samir Chopra offers a different but complementary insight. Where Marcuse sees anxiety as a product of external control, Chopra sees it as a misinterpreted signal of internal freedom. Anxiety, he suggests, is not always a problem to be solved—it can be a marker that we are standing before possibility. But rather than seeing it as such, we often try to contain it. We label it, attach it to something concrete, or try to “solve” it with productivity or avoidance. In doing so, we limit our own freedom. The cost of this is subtle but real: we shrink our lives to feel in control. We quiet our ambitions. We flatten our emotions. We build routines not to grow, but to manage fear. Chopra insists that anxiety should invite investigation.

Earlier, the examples of anxiety were easier to grasp—maybe because they had something tangible behind them. But this next form of anxiety doesn’t have a clear cause. For Tillich, anxiety is our awareness of nonbeing—of our limits, our finitude, and the eventual return to nothingness. It’s a vulnerability that comes not from this world, but from a deeper, metaphysical awareness.

Tillich says this kind of anxiety comes in three forms:

• Fate and death

  • This is the anxiety that comes from knowing we will die, and that our lives are subject to forces beyond our control.

• Emptiness and loss of meaning

  • This is the anxiety that emerges when life feels disconnected, when belief systems collapse, or when purpose slips away.

• Guilt and condemnation

  • This is the anxiety that comes from our awareness of moral failure—or the sense that we’re falling short of who we’re meant to become.

This reminder that we will return to nothingness, for Tillich, shows up even in the most mundane moments—when you’re doing the dishes, walking alone at night, or staring at the ceiling. It’s not dramatic. It’s just the unsettling feeling that something beneath the surface is off, or missing, or about to slip away.

Kierkegaard once wrote, “If there is no object to focus on, anxiety will focus on the future.” That line captures something about Tillich’s vision too: when we can’t locate our fear, it finds something for us. It drifts forward. It latches onto what hasn’t happened yet.

Through anxiety, we are reminded of something most of us work hard to forget—that we are fragile, that nothing is promised, and that everything we love can be lost. But Tillich doesn’t offer despair. He offers courage. “Courage is our affirmation of life,” he writes—not because we overcome anxiety, but because we live honestly with it.

Martin Heidegger doesn’t treat anxiety like a breakdown—he treats it like a break in the surface. Human existence, for him, is death, nothingness, and thrownness. We’re thrown into a world we didn’t choose—into situations full of acts, responsibilities, and choices—and we’re expected to make meaning in the face of an end we can’t escape.

Most of the time, we live inside routines—roles, expectations, distractions. He calls this Das Man—the “they-self,” where we just do what people do. But anxiety cuts through that. It doesn’t just make us afraid—it makes the world feel strange. Things lose their meaning. The ground shifts. And in that shift, we see clearly.

The world sedates us. Anxiety rescues us. It asks: is this really your life? Are these choices really yours? It forces us to think in ways we’d rather avoid. Even when we try to defend ourselves—through routine, distraction, or denial—anxiety finds a way in. It breaches the citadel. And when it does, it doesn’t ruin us—it reveals us.

For Heidegger, death is not just a biological fact—it’s a future event like any other. When we accept that death can happen at any moment, we’re not paralyzed—we’re liberated. Anxiety doesn’t shrink our freedom. It’s what makes real freedom possible.

I don’t fully subscribe to Sigmund Freud’s whole framework—especially his theories around sexuality and the unconscious—but he had something important to say about anxiety. Freud believed that anxiety is often the return of something repressed: an earlier fear, a past helplessness, a memory we couldn’t handle at the time. The ego, trying to protect us, pushes these things down. But they don’t go away. They resurface—quietly, irrationally, and often without a clear reason.

Freud also thought that anxiety isn’t always tied to the present moment. It can be a flashback, not just of an event, but of a feeling—being small, being powerless, being left. I don’t know how far I take his theory, but the idea that some of our fear comes from what we’ve buried makes sense to me. There are moments where my anxiety feels way out of proportion to what’s actually happening—and in those moments, I wonder if I’m reacting to something older, something I thought I was done carrying. Maybe it traces back to one of the forms Tillich described: fear of death, the loss of meaning, or the guilt of not being who I’m supposed to be.

I used to have this deep need to feel in control of my environment. It was the only way I felt safe. For a long time, I didn’t work with my anxiety—I tried to work around it. And because I didn’t feel safe, I started to shrink. I turned myself into an introvert, even though I love yapping and connecting with people. I just didn’t feel like there was space for that part of me.

Taoism gave me one of the biggest tools I’ve ever found: wu wei—the idea of going with the flow, of not forcing things. Forcing things always led me into a pernicious cycle: I’d chase something I couldn’t control, then spiral when it didn’t go the way I wanted. I wasn’t afraid of failure—I was afraid of having wanted it and not getting it. That’s the anxiety I’m still working through now: perfectionism. I get anxious when I think that if I acknowledge what I want and don’t reach it, I’ll be crushed—not by what I failed to do, but by the version of myself I imagined and didn’t become.

Repressing all those emotions—sadness especially—cut me off from earlier versions of myself. Before this shift, I cried maybe once a year. I kept myself from getting too attached to anything or anyone. I told myself that was peace. But it was shallow. I wasn’t working through anything. I wasn’t growing—I was just holding still. And holding still started to feel like being stuck.

Now, I feel more at peace with my anxiety—not because it’s gone, but because I no longer think it’s something I need to conquer. I see it as something that pushes me to live more honestly. When I see through the illusions, it inspires me to push back against the system that feeds them—through activism, through connection, through reflection. I still feel anxious—even as I write this—but now I ask: why do I feel this way? And I follow that question to the root. Sometimes it leads to memories I hadn’t dealt with. Sometimes it leads to fears I didn’t know I was still carrying.

This process of looking inward has even led me to think more about the Buddhist idea of non-self—not because I’ve let go of identity, but because I’ve started asking what parts of me were built just to feel safe. That’s probably a post for another day.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through all of this, it’s that anxiety isn’t the enemy. It’s not a malfunction or a failure of will. It’s a signal—a push, a mirror, a companion. It shows up when something matters, when we’re at a threshold, when we’re too close to the truth to ignore it. I don’t want to conquer it anymore. I want to listen to it. I want to let it sharpen me, not shrink me.

To be anxious is to be alive. And if that’s the case, then I’d rather live anxiously and honestly than live numb. Maybe that’s not peace. But it’s closer to freedom.

In high school, I felt incredibly lucky that my school offered a class on investing in the stock market. At the time, I didn’t realize how much that class would shape my entire worldview. Of course, other influences in my life reinforced the idea that success meant winning the rat race. By 16, I had fully embraced capitalism, structuring my entire life around the idea that I wanted to “be so rich that I’d hire someone whose only job was to cut the crust off my PB&J.” I spent years chasing this dream of ultimate wealth, believing that financial success was the key to freedom.

But as I started questioning that dream, Capitalist Realism: Is There Any Alternative? by Mark Fisher accelerated the change that was already underway. Fisher’s book forced me to truly evaluate the world I was operating in, helping me see how deeply Capitalist Realism infects not just the external world, but also my internal reality. I had thought capitalism was simply an economic system, a neutral tool for wealth creation, but Fisher made me realize it was much more than that—it was a pervasive ideology shaping the way we think, work, and even imagine the future.

I won’t go into detail about my blinders-off moment when I first started seeing the world differently, but I want to jump straight into the concept from Capitalist Realism that broke my brain the most: the shift from Discipline Society to Control Society.

Fisher draws from Foucault, but he specifically applies Gilles Deleuze’s expansion of the idea from his essay Postscript on the Societies of Control. Fisher describes the shift as follows:

“Discipline societies were organized around the enclosed spaces of the factory, the school, and the prison. The new control societies, in which all institutions are embedded in a dispersed corporation.”

At first, I felt that Fisher didn’t explain this as well as he could have, so I went back to read Deleuze’s work myself. That’s when I had a realization that’s been messing with my head ever since:

For most of my 20s, I had actually lived inside a Discipline Society—but I didn’t realize it until I was already back in a Control Society.

I grew up in a Control Society like everyone else. It was all I knew. Then my life took a turn—I dropped out of college and joined the Air Force. Suddenly, I was in a world where Discipline Society was still very much alive. The ‘barracks’ in the military represent the old form of discipline: strict rules, clear hierarchies, enclosed environments, and rigid schedules. The means of production was what mattered, and power was enforced physically—you were either in or out.

Leaving the military and returning to civilian life was one of the biggest shocks to my system. In a Discipline Society, power is obvious—there are institutions that enforce rules, and you know who is in charge. But in a Control Society, power is diffused, abstract, and harder to see. I went from an environment where there were clear beginnings and endings (your contract, your training, your enlistment period) to one where everything felt continuous and open-ended.

This is what Deleuze meant when he described Control Societies as a dispersed corporation. There is no one central authority giving orders—power is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Unlike a factory or a barracks, there are no physical enclosures, but there are financial, digital, and psychological enclosures that control behavior. Fisher argues that:

“Control only works if we are complicit with it.”

This phrase stuck with me, but I didn’t think Fisher fully broke it down. What does it mean to be “complicit” in control? If you’re in a Discipline Society, you resist power by breaking the rules, refusing orders, or escaping the physical space. But in a Control Society, resistance is harder because you are the one enforcing the rules on yourself.

This is where “Indefinite Postponement” comes in. Control Societies don’t rely on enclosure (prisons, schools, barracks)—they rely on debt, bonuses, and never-ending self-improvement cycles to create a new kind of enclosure.

• Students stay in school longer because of mounting debt and the pressure to be “competitive.”

• Workers never truly clock out—emails, side hustles, and “personal branding” blur the lines between life and labor.

• Retirement gets pushed further and further back—the idea of an “end” to work is an illusion.

When I started seeing these patterns, it was hard to unsee them. Unlike Discipline Societies, where power had clear boundaries, Control Societies keep people running in place indefinitely. There’s no clear authority to overthrow because the system perpetuates itself through complicity. You don’t need a warden or a drill instructor telling you what to do—you internalize the expectations and regulate yourself.

At least in the military, there were clear ranks, clear milestones, and a defined endpoint. But in a Control Society, there is no finish line—just an endless loop of productivity, self-improvement, and debt disguised as opportunity. The real trap isn’t that we’re forced to comply; it’s that we convince ourselves we’re doing it by choice.

Fisher doesn’t just critique capitalism—he questions whether we can even imagine something beyond it. Capitalism doesn’t just dominate the world; it dominates our ability to conceive of alternatives. One of the biggest challenges of resistance is that capitalism absorbs its own critiques, turning rebellion into a product.

One of Fisher’s key suggestions for moving forward is worker autonomy—reducing bureaucracy and rejecting the constant surveillance that forces people to self-regulate. This resonates deeply with me. I value autonomy, and I’ve seen firsthand how bureaucracy doesn’t just slow things down but actively conditions people to police themselves.

The biggest problem Fisher highlights isn’t just that capitalism is everywhere—it’s that it makes itself feel inevitable. Even the ways we resist are shaped by its logic. If we try to reform capitalism from within, does that just preserve the same power structures under a new name? Maybe the only way forward isn’t to tweak capitalism, but to shift hard into something else entirely. Neoliberalism has infected capitalism so deeply that it seems impossible to untangle them. If we don’t push for a radical break, will we just keep cycling through slightly different versions of the same system?

Reading Capitalist Realism has fundamentally changed the way I view the world. Through both this book and my lived experiences, I have undergone a complete and radical shift—I now believe that socialism is the way forward, not just in economic practice, but socially. Fisher has made me realize that capitalism doesn’t just shape our economy—it shapes how we relate to one another, keeping us isolated, competitive, and disconnected. A truly better world is one where we move toward collective care, empathy, and solidarity with our neighbors and strangers.

At the same time, Fisher has made me realize that resistance is ten times harder than I once thought. He highlights just how much of a Herculean task it is to change a system where the wealthiest 1% benefit too much to ever let it happen willingly. This realization doesn’t discourage me—it motivates me. If nothing else, this book has reinforced the importance of awareness. That’s why I want to continue writing and having these conversations—because the first step to change is understanding the race we are in.

I’m not frustrated with Fisher for not providing a roadmap. The task of reshaping our future is too big for any one person to dictate a solution. This is something that will require people across the country, across the world, to come together, deliberate, and experiment with what actually works—whether that means reforming or completely breaking away from capitalism. The first step isn’t having all the answers; it’s believing that change is possible.

Resistance isn’t just about having a fully formed alternative—it’s about making space to imagine one. We have to believe we can change the world in order to start the process of doing it.

Ultimately, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and it has changed my life for the better. It will hold a special place in my heart for that.

This is the start of my journey into challenging certain perceptions I’ve held about the world. I would say I’m currently an unrefined philosopher. This is my first post on Substack, and I wanted to bring everyone along on my journey of refinement. The first thing I’m doing is starting to read books again.

I felt that at this point in my life, I’ve been in a state of transition. My life has completely changed, and I felt this would be the best time to begin this process. I also wanted to share this journey with others who are exploring the world around them.

The first book I decided to read, to start my journey, is Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher. Before starting this book, my initial understanding of capitalism was that it was merely a vehicle for doing things, attaching dollar signs to goods, services, and time. I didn’t think anything was wrong with it. I recall once proudly proclaiming, “I love Capitalism!” Now I see that this belief was woven into my life as seamlessly as breathing.

Fisher exposed me to just how deeply capitalism had infested my thoughts and dreams. He states:

“For most people under twenty in Europe and North America, the lack of alternatives to capitalism is no longer even an issue. Capitalism seamlessly occupies the horizons of the thinkable.”

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I once believed my dreams were free from worldly limitations, but now I realize I was living with blinders on.

As I tried to imagine what we, as a society, could do about capitalism, I began to feel the boundaries of my own imagination—the shackles imposed by the current system. I considered some form of protest, but also recognized that people must still live under existing conditions. Fisher then interprets the philosopher Zizek’s message:

“So long as we believe that capitalism is bad, we are free to continue to participate in capitalist exchange.”

The foundation set by the early chapters of the book has deeply challenged me, and as I continue reading, I find myself struggling to make sense of it all. In trying to reconcile Fisher’s critique with my own experiences, I’ve thought about my involvement with nonprofits whose missions I truly respect. These organizations were founded by passionate individuals who recognized critical gaps in the world, and I still believe they do valuable, necessary work—even as I grapple with the broader implications raised by Fisher’s ideas.

Something had been nagging me for a while, though. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was until I read more of the book. I came to believe that we cannot fully solve these issues using the very system that created them. Whether we’re talking about the climate crisis, disenfranchised communities, or any other systemic problem, current solutions often rely on personal responsibility—volunteering, donating—rather than on changing the system itself.

The proposed solution suggests that everyday people should step up by volunteering or donating money. This realization brought to my attention that nagging feeling in the back of my brain. I want to help fix problems, but how can I do so without altering the system that caused them? It threatens to become a churning cycle that always keeps these “solutions” in business.

Fisher, in just three chapters, has challenged me in ways I haven’t experienced before. He has sparked a conversation about a topic I’ve never discussed in such depth. I will most likely finish the book and return with my full thoughts. I’m excited to collect these reflections in one place, and I hope others will join me. Together, perhaps we can figure out if we’re nearing a point where true alternatives can emerge—or if capitalist realism will continue to set the boundaries of our imagination.

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