Uhh… yes it is? I mean, what emotion would you otherwise attribute to it? Because dread as an emotion—also literally in the term “existential dread”—can be directly described as an anticipatory anxiety about future events.
The two are extremely closely related if not referring to the exact same feeling. They really only differ in context, and even then only semantically.
It’s still paranoia even if someone is really out to get you. A little paranoia is healthy IMO, as long as it isn’t causing a significant disruption to your life for no good reason.
Same thing with anxiety. Being aware of how things can go wrong is an important survival skill IMO but not if it paralyzes you or takes over all your thoughts for no good reason. That last bit is important. Spending all your effort storm proofing your home while a massive storm is coming in is smart. Spending 6 hours rocking back and forth on a chair because you’re worried about what that storm will do isn’t.
Rational concerns about the very real impending ecosystem collapse vs irrational concerns like a bear attacking me in my living room. I do not live in an area with bears. To be clear I’m not actually concerned about bears necessarily but my body is in full fight or flight survival mode while I’m just trying to catch up on my shows.
Not just self awareness but also awareness about state of world. Existential dread is not anxiety.
Uhh… yes it is? I mean, what emotion would you otherwise attribute to it? Because dread as an emotion—also literally in the term “existential dread”—can be directly described as an anticipatory anxiety about future events.
The two are extremely closely related if not referring to the exact same feeling. They really only differ in context, and even then only semantically.
It’s still paranoia even if someone is really out to get you. A little paranoia is healthy IMO, as long as it isn’t causing a significant disruption to your life for no good reason.
Same thing with anxiety. Being aware of how things can go wrong is an important survival skill IMO but not if it paralyzes you or takes over all your thoughts for no good reason. That last bit is important. Spending all your effort storm proofing your home while a massive storm is coming in is smart. Spending 6 hours rocking back and forth on a chair because you’re worried about what that storm will do isn’t.
What’s the difference? Scale?
Rational concerns about the very real impending ecosystem collapse vs irrational concerns like a bear attacking me in my living room. I do not live in an area with bears. To be clear I’m not actually concerned about bears necessarily but my body is in full fight or flight survival mode while I’m just trying to catch up on my shows.
Yeah this, but most of society seems to happy to ignore those very real and rational existential threads.