Poll: What is "Angst" to you?

[freaper]

Hello, Escapists!

I've been itching to make any sort of topic for a while, so I figured I might as well jump-start a new thread at 3am and pick a subject everyone's familiar with, at least to some extent. Since I'm (hopefully) nearing the tail-end of my belated and extended puberty I'm starting to get some perspective on the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, and yet, I can't help but still feel anxious from time to time. I'm also well aware that this phantom will stick around for a lot longer than just my early twenties, but that's beside the point.

In popular culture, we (the Council of Mages) often ridicule teenagers who sing about their troubles, dismissing it as angsty, shallow music almost solely because, well, they're tiny humans with less life experiences. Now behind the term angst lies a much larger philosophical dimension, but I'm interested in what this feeling of angst means to you, the readers of this topic.

So, in short; what is "Angst" to you?

P.S.:What type of chocolate do you engorge on a far-too-regular basis?

 

[Euryalus]

With a capital A? Fear... Just fear. Not in a philosophical way, more of a thesaurus way. For very specific German reasons. >.>

With a small a, definitely sasuke. Fuck that guy and his stupid lightning.

And as for chocolate none, I'm not a fan of chocolate although I kind of like brownies and fudge.

 

[God'sFist]

everything that is Sasuke from Naruto. I'm not a fan of the series I first watched it when it first aired on toonami and watched a few episodes after that. Never really liked it all that much. But if I were to define angst it would be Sasuke Uchiha.

 

[Rabbitboy]

Usually milk. Although in my eyes all chocolate is created equally.

As for the real question, it has always meant fear to me. Though in English it seems to refer people who brood a lot and need to get over certain traumatic experiences.

 

[natenate95]

Angst is pretty much every thought/action you have from 16-20.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

"Angst" wasn't fear to me, but anxiety; the constant gnawing dread that everything you do is going to end up fucking you over, and that everyone is watching you screw up and laugh. Fortunately, when people stop handing out letter grades for your every piece of work, it tends to shrink down as you learn how to make errors and fix them, and that people generally aren't watching you waiting to pounce.

 

[Veldel]

Sasuke from naruto fuck that guy.



Very dark chocolate between 80-90% cocoa is somthing I eat far to often. I don't like milk chocolate much it's often to sweet.

 

[Queen Michael]

Unpleasant inner turmoil. Though I'm not German, so hey.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Angst was a musical written by The Brain in the Broadway Malady episode of Pinky and The Brain.

 

[somonels]

Fear, anxiety, powerlessness towards future events.

Sasuke isn't angsty, he's a brooding revenge character that just flattens as the show runs from ep1 to ep..whatever it ends with, like the rest of Naruto. He's essentially the pouty clinger of romance comedies.

 

[GabeZhul]

Angst is not a problem or negative feeling by itself. Angst is when you take that problem or negative feeling and refuse to stop talking about it to others, or at the very least being passive-aggressive about it.

Everyone has bad times. Most people have dealt with some degree of depression or anxiety over their lives. There is nothing wrong with that. It's a symptom of this chronic, 100% lethal disease called "life". The problem begins when you for some reason decide to dump your problem on others, or even worse, when you engage in disruptive and self-destructive behavior (self-cutting, extreme nonconformist, monologuing about the darkness in your soul, etc.) in order to force the people around you to pay attention to you so that you can dump your problem on them all the same.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Angst: Hatred's trailer.

As for chocolate, I like mine dark, just like how I like my Earl Grey.

I'm not enjoying my tea without at least little struggle or a little kick.

 

[sneakypenguin]

For me when I hear it. Just worry about stupid crap that is meaningless to everyone else (and yourself in 5 years).

 

[cleric of the order]

I think it's basis in necrosis, we do have such terms and existential angst.
I i prefer to call teenagers shallow and edgy.
EDGY, EDGY, EDGY, EDGY.
because they interests are based largely in self obsessed rebellion with little real wisdom.
of course there's a reason why we call the young fools, and as a old man long before my time i know it.
fucking kids won't stay off my lawn.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

"a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general."

More personally though, I tend to associate it connotatively with an "unjustified" feeling of anxiety or dread about the world. I think that's usually how people view it though.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

What is angst?
Baby, you hurt me.
You hurt me.
Before.

(Get somma that milk chocolate in ya.)

 

[FPLOON]

Angst is like chocolate... If people tell you that you can never have too much of it, they clearly haven't had enough of it themselves...

What is angst?
Baby, you hurt me.
You hurt me.
Before.

Spoiler: This calls for the neck snap dance

http://i43.tinypic.com/mkarkk.jpg

<color=white>I like my chocolate like I like my women... Filled with caramel and nuts...

 

[TWRule]

I can see this discussion may not be headed in the most serious possible direction, but I'll weigh in seriously anyway.

'Angst' to me means existential anxiety: terror about one's existential situation which can't seem to be adequately explained in terms of anxiety over any particular event or collection of events in one's life. In moments when one experiences angst, life seems meaningless and the future is shrouded in a profound dread. It might be described as a sort of traumatic terror about the very fact of your existence - though that doesn't capture all that is contained in the feeling.

Every subtle thinker who has handled the subject seriously distinguishes angst from mere fear. One way of describing the distinction (though not the only way) might be this: Fear is born from concern that your life will somehow be affected from without by specific forces beyond your control, while anxiety is an anguish over your own weakness and mistrust of yourself as you confront your existential situation and all that entails.

Obviously, existential angst is not to be confused with the colloquial uses of the terms 'angst' or 'anxiety'. People associate 'angst' with a teenager's seemingly unfounded and indiscriminately-directed troubled rebelliousness, and the term carries connotations that this rebelliousness is to be dismissed as the foolish naivete of youth.

I detest this colloquial use of the term because it actually obscures the existential meaning in several ways: 1) It leads people to believe that there is no form of angst that is to be taken seriously as indicating problems that are part of the human condition, and 2) It dismisses that teenagers' struggles might in at least some cases be understood as outgrowths of the former sorts of problems, and thus to be taken seriously rather than dismissed, which in turn creates a prevailing norm that identifies 'mature adulthood' as an unwillingness to ever discuss existential issues as though they should have been easily overcome by the individual (as if they were reducible to individual psychological hang-ups) at a certain age.

If you don't think that this colloquial abuse of the term obscures the philosophical/existential meaning, consider that even a huge number of self-proclaimed 'philosophers' today dismiss those who wish to discuss angst seriously in much the same way the average adult dismisses 'teenage angst' - again as though it were merely a product of naivete that had no actual roots in the human condition, or even the modern human condition.

Of course, it also nearly goes without saying that existential angst/anxiety is not the same as colloquially-known 'anxiety'. The latter is directed towards specific events or features of the world confronting one and so is more akin to fear; and like fear it is generally treated as a purely psychological phenomenon which might be smoothed over with drugs if it props up with unusual frequency. But again, this psychological meaning of 'anxiety' is still conflated with the existential meaning. Heck, I've even seen "studies" which claim that Tylenol can cure existential angst!

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/experiencing-existential-dread-tylenol-may-do-the-trick.html

In sum, 'angst' to me means existential anxiety - it is a mood which points to real existential issues that must be taken seriously and to which all or most of humanity are subject (though its effects might express themselves differently in different people), not just a few outlying individuals or teenagers as an age-group.