Those are such interesting, worthy speculations, Amber. And maybe not speculative but true according to physics or even metaphysics. Both of those are way above my pay grade but your post sparked a lot of thoughts and recognitions. Thanks!
Anxiety is so complicated. Sometimes when I was immersed in the extreme high stresses of various crises over the years, I'd be too numb to name it, but my body would still play it out. So though I did have moments of ecstasy, I mostly wouldn't often be happily distracted or immersed in a contented flow as you describe, but instead, marinating in adrenalin. Day to day, simple living and regular routines have always been a struggle because of the ADD, so the shame-cycles of that would spark new anxiety spurts. Tried meditation and anxiety would spike even more, though I still am certain meditation would be helpful if I could maintain the habit.
I think some of it, actually a lot of it, is not incorrect thinking or analyses but what my thoughts and feelings mean to me, looked at all together. Early inclinations and religious training supported my basic nature (like my father's) as mostly an empath. Just a jittery, poorly-regulated one. Codependency lurks just beyond the borders of loving and caring. But that doesn't make the loving and caring not worth risking. An impulse toward meaning gives purpose, even when one feels ineffective. As does love.
Sometimes I speculate that more of our feeling states and thinking patterns are biological than we understand. And others are flabbergastingly mysterious, for which I can only scrape up the word "spiritual." Experiencing hypnosis and having my life saved by it, was one crack in the universe that let in a different light. That deep life force I'd always thought of as an abstraction was palpable then, and it changed things. It was mystery and positive, not fearful.
Ime, anxiety seems like this:
panicky thought cycles
biological and chemical reactions to events or sensations
chickens and eggs arguing over which of these came first
I don't fear death itself. In some ways I look forward to it but that's just residual hope from early religion. Mainly, I think of it as something that nature knows how to do and I don't, so it's something I'll be able to submit to in trust. Just as babies submit to being shoved down the birth canal. When I watched my father's face transform to pure wonder as he died, it was comforting. I don't know if he went down the tunnel to an amazingly beautiful other dimension of energy that contains him still, or whether after a huge whoosh of last light and the brain bringing up deep beautiful stored memories or images, he winked out forever. (Hence, agnosticism.) And I never will know until I'm there myself. Meanwhile, instincts seem to urge us to keep living as long as we can.
I do fear loneliness and suffering before death. I am not afraid to go pretty deeply into where emotions can go as that leads to creativity at times, but I'm also a physical coward with a low pain threshold. I've spent so much time with the very old that I recognize that acute loneliness, neglect and suffering may become the norm for some of us. On the other hand, some very-old do seem more contented than folks a decade or two younger, and that's interesting. Maybe by then one is more at peace with the outcome and it just gets incorporated into the present.
One factor for me that may never change is that losing my only child (and family) changed my attitude toward fear of loss. She's not dead but I don't expect to ever see her again. For me, I don't expect to ever experience a greater loss (unless she died), so I doubt anything will possibly ever hurt as much. So I don't feel anxiety about that any more, as it proved something profound about releasing the outcome. Or accepting that the outcome is entirely out of our hands. When there's no choice, you do what you have to do as much as you are able. Or just keep breathing even if sometimes you'd rather feel nothing.
Although I'll grieve as I lose friends one day, I will be raw-heartbroken when Pooch goes. But my belief is that unconditional love is as close as the next animal or human (or cause) in need of it, though, and I'll always need someone to love.
Ramble, ramble.
Not a very coherent response to your very coherent essay, Amber, but I enjoyed it a lot. If I could start every day with a deep think like this, it'd be awesome. Must create a To Do list.
hugs
Hops
