1. Do I Even Have the Right to Talk About Anxiety?
(0) Why Anxiety, and Why Now?
In Korean bookstores today, anxiety dominates the shelves. Currency shocks triggered by years of low interest rates, a weakening economy, and national-level cash injections…Most explanations rely on a single frame:
“People are anxious because conditions are bad.”
But at Saltnfire, emotion isn’t treated as a condition or a substance. We’ve been exploring how boredom, humor, sorrow, and other emotions are perceived using the “World–Narrative–Body” framework.
So the guiding question for this series is extremely simple:
How is anxiety perceived?
This is not a self-help project. It is a phenomenological question about how we read the world. If you struggle with anxiety around career, future, or relationships, I hope this helps you rethink what anxiety actually is—not clinically, but experientially.
(1) Alain de Botton’s “Status Anxiety” — Valid, But Only Half-Right
In Status Anxiety, Alain de Botton argues that anxiety arises from fear: fear of losing social status, economic position, affection, or competence. He connects anxiety to:
- emotional deprivation
- social comparison and alienation
- performance expectations
- meritocratic insecurity
- structural uncertainty
To solve this, he proposes: philosophy, art, political participation, bohemian communities, religion. The Main logic: 👉 “Individuals cannot change the system, so shift perception instead.”
And yes, perception-shifting sounds elegant… But it isn’t simple. Reading philosophy or staring at art does nothing if it never connects back to one’s lived reality. Going to church on Sunday doesn’t change what happens on Monday. To perceive the ordinary as extraordinary, you need role models—Real people who embody that worldview and display it through lifestyle, mise-en-scène, and objects.
In the modern world, this role is played not by priests, but by entrepreneurs and creators. The rise of YouTube and Medium makes de Botton’s logic look convincing. Everyone tries to imitate the thoughts and actions of others. They think that if they do as others do, they at least won’t suffer a loss. De Botton’s idea seems correct.
Yet one question bothers me: If fear of status-loss is the primary motive behind anxiety, then why am I not anxious? Because if I measure myself by his framework, I should be drowning in anxiety.
But I’m not.
Examples That Contradict de Botton:
• Fear of Affection Loss?
I live alone in Gori. No friends, no dating, no colleagues, no family, no language exchange. I haven’t spoken Korean over 7 months. Yet I do not feel emotional anxiety.
• Status Comparison?
My friends work for Samsung and Hyundai. Some became professors. Me? No car, no house, no job.
Just an unknown writer. I’m fully aware that I’m “behind.” But I’m not anxious about it.
• Expectation & Achievement Anxiety?
I used to have expectations—my own and others’. But after corporate failure, Covid, restaurant management, and watching life collapse despite effort, I lost faith in that logic. Some things won’t work no matter how aligned you are with society. Not everything is personal failure. Not everything is lack of ability. So proving myself to others lost meaning.
Instead, I follow my own endorphin routine: I archive daily, sometimes with good focus, sometimes not. Sometimes I wake early, sometimes late. But on average, I’m moving at a steady 60% rhythm. Recognition and reward no longer dominate my emotional structure.
• Uncertainty Anxiety?
I have little savings. Live in a foreign country. Visa-free. No friends. No clear future.
My “dream”: Build a blog archive, earn revenue, run a small tavern and craft shop.
Reality check: My blog still has no Google traction after eight months. And yet— I sleep well.
(2) So Why Am I Not Particularly Anxious?
De Botton’s concept of anxiety focuses on conditions: economic stability, social security, cultural belonging, middle-class order. His anxiety theory reflects stability-centric assumptions: rules matter, local networks matter, institutions matter, reputation matters.
Some will say: “Maybe philosophy, art, and community cured your anxiety? As De Botton said”
But I do none of that. The key: de Botton is describing a dopamine-based system. Dopamine is built on expectation and reward:
- “What if the outcome isn’t as good as I hoped?”
- “What if others get more than I do?”
- “What if effort doesn’t pay off?”
Time-delay between effort and reward creates anxiety. He operates on the premise that life’s payoff exists solely in the fulfillment of dopamine. Consequently, when results fail to meet expectations and the dopamine hit is denied, anxiety takes hold. This traps us in a short-term time preference. But the meaning of life does not reside in dopamine alone. If you grasp the endorphin-driven reward system, you can remain steady even when you have nothing to show for it—by zeroing in on the raw act of enduring and pushing through the daily struggle itself.
In this era of rugged self-reliance, I am dedicated to exploring survival philosophies and market dynamics while consistently critiquing hip-hop. I find fulfillment in the raw act of learning and applying something new every single day. This is my subjective purpose—a utility independent of immediate external rewards. My journey mirrors Nietzsche’s, who sought to extract truth from Wagner’s music even amidst his physical agony. Finding those who grappled with ‘street truths’ ignored by the state dissolves my inner anxiety. Short-term, dopamine-driven gratification is no longer a metric that defines my life.
Conclusion of Section One
If you stand inside capitalism’s core and accept the dopamine reward structure as truth, then you can only analyze anxiety through systemic breakdowns: economic pressure, social instability, unfairness, uncertainty. Within that frame, anxiety becomes inevitable—and the subjective process disappears.
But then how do we explain:
- people like me (with unstable conditions) who aren’t anxious, and
- wealthy, successful individuals who are drowning in anxiety?
This cannot be explained by: “People with more to lose feel more anxious,” or “Just let go and you’ll be fine.” It suggests we need a phenomenological approach: Bracket dopamine, suspend judgment, and explore how the world–self relation produces anxiety at the perceptual level.
That is what this article will explore.
2. Anxiety as a Fashion Object
Before we enter the main argument, we need to examine how anxiety is understood today. Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety is a classic—written in the early 2000s and widely praised. But twenty years later, anxiety is no longer just a social problem; it is now consumed like fashion.
And by “fashion,” I mean two things: (1) aestheticization, and (2) existential romanticization.
(1) The Aestheticization of Pain
I’ve criticized aestheticization of pain many times. Anxiety today is often treated like an aesthetic object—sensationalized, romanticized, turned into art. This is deeply linked to modern artistic and literary movements that portray suffering as beautiful or profound. Nietzsche, for example, elevated pain into sublimity: Dionysian beauty, eternal recurrence, amor fati—love your life even if suffering repeats forever. French and German melancholic aesthetics, and later the hippie counterculture, continued this lineage. European intellectuals built an entire cultural habitat around stylish despair. And the public followed. Sharing intimate anxieties, romanticizing sorrow, overstating emotional wounds —these became cultural habits, a trend, almost a form of social capital.
But the more you depict suffering as something beautiful or sublime, the more it becomes a mere abstraction. It blinds us to the reality of pain. Because real pain is undeniably filthy, exhausting, and just plain shitty. Anxiety is the same. Romanticizing the feeling and huddling together for mutual comfort doesn’t solve a thing. It never actually resolves the reality of anxiety. It produces emptiness without action. It blinds people to real suffering. And it rewards performative vulnerability instead of honest experience.
(2) Anxiety as the Last Humanistic Symbol in the AI Age
Since the industrial revolution, capitalism has pursued functional perfection: faster, lighter, cheaper. For a hundred years, identity meant being “someone who produces X.”
Then Steve Jobs shifted the paradigm: functional polish became obvious and assumed. He sold artistic elegance, sensory perfection, and lifestyle narrative. He proved that entrepreneurs could sell not just products, but themselves. From that moment, personality and aesthetic preference became identity units: MBTI profiles, taste niches, lifestyle branding.
Now, the age of AI is accelerating functional perfection even further. Many objects are indistinguishable from human-made ones. In some domains, AI is outperforming humans. So human uniqueness retreats into the body and emotion. And the most commonly expressed emotional marker today—
is anxiety. Once, expressing mental fragility was seen as weakness or pathology. Now, anxiety signals honesty, sincerity, humanity. People say: “I am anxious.”, “I feel fragile.”, “I’m struggling.”—this creates recognition and solidarity. Anxiety is becoming an existential credential.
But this doesn’t mean people enjoy anxiety itself. People enjoy expressing it—sharing, bonding—not experiencing it. Therefore, even though anxiety expression is trending, there is still a need to analyze its fundamental structure. Fashion doesn’t replace theory.
(3) The Shallow Explanation of Anxiety: You’re anxious because you have too much to lose
Popular self-help books often argue: “The more you possess, the more anxious you become. Therefore, live simply.” According to this view, status, reputation, wealth, health— anything you value becomes part of your identity. The possibility of losing it threatens existence. Therefore: anxiety. This aligns with dopamine logic: prove achievement, build capital, maintain image, endlessly perform survival.
Some ascetics preach letting go of possessions and suppressing desire, claiming it leads to satisfaction in the smallest things. But let’s be real: this is just another form of hedonism in disguise. Even if you choose an ascetic life, the world won’t leave you alone. Asceticism is merely a forced endurance of pain. My philosophy is different: it’s about proactively embracing that 1% of pain to uncover life’s meaning. To actively take on suffering is to maintain a sovereign stance toward the world.
3. The Phenomenological Structure of Anxiety
Starting with de Botton’s classic, we looked at how anxiety is currently treated culturally.
Now, we enter the core question:
What is the phenomenological structure of anxiety?
(1) My Experience: Anxiety Does Not Come from Status Loss
— It Comes from Perceived Dependence
To explore anxiety phenomenologically, you must suspend value judgments and remove clichés. From my own life, anxiety did not arise from: status collapse, competition, or fear of failure. Instead, anxiety emerged when survival became dependent on others. Asking for financial help, borrowing money, relying on someone → this created physical discomfort.
Not because of humiliation or pride, but because dependence threatened control of life. If I owe someone, I must pay them back. If I rely on others, I lose agency. If I lose agency, I lose my body, narrative, and meaning. That equals the collapse of survival. That is anxiety.
During Covid, I sensed rent failure approaching. I used card loans to delay disaster, but liquidity dried up. Banks refused loans without collateral. I wasn’t anxious about losing status. I was anxious about becoming dependent. Because asking family or friends for help creates debt. And debt threatens narrative sovereignty. In Korean society—with weak unconditional safety nets— dependence equals burden, guilt, and obligation.
So the chain reaction was simple: Dependence on the world → perceived burden and debt → loss of control over body, narrative, meaning → threat to survival structure → extreme anxiety.
Summary: Anxiety is not about status. It is the felt sense of dependence.
(2) Japanese Anxiety: Dependence = Debt = Identity Erosion 🇯🇵
My perspective aligns with Japanese culture. Japan deeply fears meiwaku—causing trouble to others. Japanese people are anxious not because of status loss, but because dependence creates relational debt which erodes identity.
Ruth Benedict described the “恩 (on)” and “恩返し (on-gaeshi)” structure: Receiving help demands inevitable repayment— not just financially, but through loyalty, labor, and emotion. Even after repayment, the relational debt remains. In Japan, reputation isn’t kept by repaying money on time. It is kept by honoring those who once helped you—even across generations. So dependence becomes existential.
Why did this occur? Pre-modern Japan was not individualistic. For nearly a thousand years, identity was defined by affiliation: clan, caste, master, village, feudal lord. Identity was “Where do you stand?” not “Who are you?” Japanese tachiba (立場)—position/context— defined the self. Introducing oneself meant announcing relationships, not personal ability. Therefore dependence was never temporary—it altered social structure permanently.
In contrast, my experience in Gori, Georgia is the opposite: Dependence → closeness, not debt. People casually ask: “Give me that notebook?”, “Bro, can you give me 1 gel?”, “No? Fine.” I asked a real estate agent to find me a pull-up bar. He tried. If it failed, no problem. In such a society, dependence does not equal identity erosion. So anxiety remains low. Because you know you won’t be abandoned at the cliff’s edge.
(3) The Three Axes of Anxiety (Core Summary)
So far, we’ve reached a clearer framework: Anxiety does not fundamentally arise from status, money, or reputation. It emerges from dependency. More precisely, anxiety has three axes:
Fear of Losing Bodily Control
When the body fails—through illness, fatigue, chronic pain—we become physically dependent on others. This perceived dependence becomes anxiety.
Fear of Narrative Disorientation
If you cannot interpret your world—what you’re doing, where you’re going, why you exist— you must rely on others for meaning and direction. Dependency → anxiety.
Fear of Losing Meaning-Making Autonomy
In societies where dependence = debt, failure to “repay” that debt erodes identity: Your life becomes obligated to someone else’s terms. Meaning dissolves into relational obligation → anxiety.
Why I Am Not as Anxious as I Should Be
According to conventional psychology and economics, I am someone who should be extremely anxious: no stable income, no institutional safety, living abroad alone, uncertain future. Yet I am not. Why? Because my life is filled through a self-directed routine that minimizes external dependence.
A routine is not motivational self-help. It is an agency structure:
- I control my body’s schedule (writing, exercise, cooking).
- I control my daily rhythm.
- I control meaning through my own work archive.
Living in Gori with low cost reduces dependency risk. I rarely need to ask anyone for favors. I owe no one a debt—financially or socially. As long as my life remains internally manageable, comparison, jealousy, humiliation, and online hostility don’t produce anxiety.
Additionally, even if illness comes, I know I can return to Korea and rely on world-class medical care and insurance protections. That safety net lowers the anxiety of bodily vulnerability.
From this framework, the paradox becomes solvable: Why are some wealthy people anxious and some poor people calm? Not because of money. Because of dependency structure.
(4) Why the Wealthy Can Be Deeply Anxious
Modern capitalism teaches that money solves everything: Pain? Therapy. Fear? Medication. Alienation? Parties, vacations, shopping. Reality says otherwise. The more money people earn, the more their life depends on: investors, customers, staff, algorithms, media, state regulation, brand identity.
Money reduces small dependencies—but amplifies large systemic ones. Scaling a business does not come from internal cashflow discipline. It comes from leverage, debt, networking, and external capital. Therefore, building wealth increases structural dependence.
Case Study: Ohtani vs. Sam Altman
Shohei Ohtani
Ohtani’s survival rests almost entirely on his own body: internal skill → internal control → internal meaning.
- He sleeps 10–12 hours
- He removes distractions
- He lives inside a strict routine
- He depends on almost no one
- His fortune is embodied
Therefore, low anxiety. As long as his body lasts, his narrative is stable.
Sam Altman
Altman is rich, influential, admired. Yet profoundly vulnerable. He depends on:
- billionaires (Thiel, Masayoshi Son)
- geopolitical actors
- investors
- legal structures
- media ecosystems
- boards
- public mood
His fate is entangled with forces he cannot control. 2016 interview, The New Yorker:
“I have prepared for survival: guns, gold, antibiotics, batteries, land in Big Sur…”
After being removed as OpenAI CEO in 2024:
“I am painfully human.”, “Betrayal and panic hit later. I couldn’t sleep or eat.”
He has status, yet feels unsafe—because dependency is everywhere in his ecosystem. If Altman opened a tiny shop, lived from routine, and owed nothing to anyone, he may have felt calmer than with billions in capital.
Key Conclusion
Status does not determine anxiety. Dependency structure does.
| Quadrant | State | Example | Identity Explanation | Root Anxiety Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ① High Status × High Anxiety | Powerful but unstable | Sam Altman | Status comes from external networks | External dependency (investors, politics, media, boards) |
| ② Low Status × High Anxiety | Struggling & dependent | Debt-ridden worker / leveraged homeowner | Survival depends on banks, rent, wages | External dependency (credit, housing, bosses) |
| ③ Low Status × Low Anxiety | Free despite “failure” | Saltnfire | Daily routine creates self-agency | Internal control + minimal dependency |
| ④ High Status × Low Anxiety | Mastery-based stability | Shohei Ohtani | Wealth rooted in embodied skill | Internal control + embodied competence |
(5) Thought Experiment: What if we became fully self-sufficient?
We’ve argued that anxiety originates from dependence. So here’s the natural question: If a human became completely self-sufficient, would anxiety disappear?
To explore this, we turn to Zhuangzi’s famous fable in the Autumn Floods chapter. Zhuangzi was fishing when two ministers arrived with a royal offer: “Our king wishes to appoint you to govern the state.”
Without turning around, he replied:
“In your kingdom there is a sacred turtle, dead for 3,000 years, wrapped in silk and placed in a shrine. Do you think that turtle preferred to die and be honored, or to be alive dragging its tail in the mud?”
The ministers answered: “Alive, dragging its tail in the mud.” Zhuangzi replied: “Then leave me alone. I too will drag my tail through the mud.”
The message is sharp: Reject artificial power, reject dependence, and one becomes free. Zhuangzi idealizes a life that does not rely on kings, nations, or institutions— a life without anxiety.
But modern readers instantly feel: Something is missing. We cannot actually turn into turtles. We cannot throw away society and live like hermits.
Why? Because “human” means 人間 — a being between people. Human life requires others. To be human is to depend, connect, exchange, communicate, belong. And that leads to the paradox at the heart of anxiety:
Dependence creates anxiety — yet without dependence, meaning of human disappears.
A life with no anxiety is possible, but that life is no longer recognizably human. It is a survival existence—not a human existence.
Zhuangzi’s Second Teaching — The Story of Jiriso
Here is the counterweight to the fishing story. A lesser-known Zhuangzi passage, likely authored by Zhuangzi himself: Jiriso was a man physically deformed. His jaw below his navel, shoulders above his skull, bones twisted, legs fused to ribs. Yet he lived:
- sewing and washing for wages,
- supporting ten others through divination work,
- exempt from war,
- exempt from forced labor,
- receiving state grain during famine.
Zhuangzi writes: “A man who destroyed his body still nurtured himself fully—how much more so a man who destroys his status?”
The symbolic meaning:
- Jiriso chose uselessness to avoid exploitation.
- Uselessness equals safety.
- Safety equals freedom from anxiety.
But that is not the end. Jiriso was not a hermit: 👉 he fed others, divined for others, and supported others. He was not just a turtle in the mud. He lived meaning.
Zhuangzi is saying: Freedom comes from not being used by the world. Meaning of Human comes from being useful to others. Therefore: self-sufficiency alone removes anxiety, but helping others generates meaning of life.
This resolves the paradox:
- Human life = partial dependence
- Anxiety = enforced dependence
- Meaning of life = voluntary mutual dependence
Key Insight: Anxiety and Meaning Are the Same Structure
From all four sections, we arrive at the central thesis: Anxiety arises when your survival depends on others. Meaning of life arises when someone else’s survival depends on you.
Same structure, opposite direction:
| State | Description | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Dependence forced on you | Others control your survival | Anxiety |
| Dependence flowing from you | You help others survive | Meaning |
The turtle says: “Reject the world and be free.” Jiriso says: “Remain in the world and be meaningful.” Zhuangzi’s answer is: Do both.
3. Conclusion
In this article, I explored the structure of anxiety through personal experience and philosophical analysis:
- Anxiety is not a status problem. It is a survival structure.
- Dependence → Anxiety. If survival sits outside the body—banks, bosses, investors, approval—
anxiety emerges. - Self-sufficient routine kills anxiety. Routine = bodily control + narrative direction + meaning autonomy.
My present life in Gori resembles Jiriso: low needs, low dependence, healthcare safety net, nothing to lose. So anxiety is low. This is the “turtle dragging its tail” stage. But I don’t intend to remain a turtle. Writing—this article, these ideas—is my version of Jiriso’s divination. If these words reduce someone else’s anxiety, if they strengthen someone’s survival structure, then meaning arises, and the loop closes. This is the antidote to anxiety: Become self-sufficient enough to remove fear, then become helpful enough to create meaning.
It’s not conditions, it’s the structure: Need the world → anxiety. Feed the world → meaning.
Stay tuned. 🔥
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