Critchley's Thoughts on Anxiety

    In Critchley's article, " To Philosophize Is to Learn How to Die" he focuses on the topic of anxiety but more specifically, anxiety during a pandemic. Throughout this article Critchley gives very specific examples of how a pandemic like COVID-19 can heighten or even bring anxiety to a person. This pandemic has caused an overwhelming sense of worry in people's everyday lives that wasn't there before. For examples, many people may feel uneasy and scared when they are around a larger group of people in fear of getting COVID. Many people may think that anxiety is brought on by fear, however this is not the case. Critchley characterizes anxiety as not being able to focus or concentrate because your mind is being taken over by the presence of the anxiety. Anxiety is a mental issue that causes your mind to make up scenarios on a irrational level while fear comes from a real life object that is likely to cause pain or be a threat. 

    The idea of philosophy comes into play by the argument that Critchley makes when he says  "to philosophize is to learn how to die". He goes further into this idea when he quotes   Montaigne who says,"he who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.” I think that this is a very powerful point as it reflects that to anxiety. One who suffers with such anxiety can feel as if they are enslaved to their own mind and the only way to fix this is to overcome the fear of "dying" and breaking this bondage that your mind has on you. In regards to the pandemic, philosophers have had to deal with this sense of social distancing when they were confined to a cells. Being trapped in a jail cell is how many people must have felt during the pandemic and this caused many feelings of anxiousness and worry as most people are not use to being confined to one place.   

    After reading Critchley's article I fully agree with the points that he was making and it gave me a better sense of what philosophy actually is. Fear and anxiety are not the same and I think that Critchley does a very good job of giving clear facts so that readers are aware of the difference. The idea that to "learn how to die" is what allows you to break from this anxiety really makes readers dive deeper into the point that he is making. Philosophy is a very interesting topic and it may surprise a lot of people by how much it connects to everything around us.