We are always divided between our will and our personality, the conscious and the unconscious. Whenever we face the abyss between the two, we are overcome with an uneasy feeling the existentialists called Angst. [Iris Murdoch defines] it as the “fright which the conscious will feels when it apprehends the strength and direction of the personality which is not under its immediate control.” … In a sense, Angst — which often manifests as anxiety, to use a presently fashionable term — is the loss of faith in the omnipotence of the rational will, the discovery that much of our conduct is governed by unconscious tendrils of our personality impervious to our conscious ideals. This makes the project of change far more complex and durational than we would like it to be.
Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings)
Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
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