 Would I be correct in assuming that when you speak of anxiety, you don't think of it as a symptom to be removed, but rather as a gateway for exploration into the meaning of life? Yes. Well, you got that exactly right. Now, I think anxiety is associated with creativity. When you're in a situation of anxiety, you can, of course, run away from it. And that's certainly not constructive. Or you can take a few pills to get you over it or cocaine or whatever else you may take. You could meditate. Well, you could meditate. But I think none of those things, including meditation, which I happen to believe in, but none of those paths lead you to creative activity. What anxiety means is that although the world is knocking at your door, and you need to create, you need to make something, you need to do something, and I think anxiety, thus, is for people who have found their own heart and their own souls. For them it is a stimulus toward creativity, toward courage. It's what makes us human beings. I suppose much of our anxiety comes from the basic human dilemma of being mortal, ultimately having to confront our own demise. We are conscious of our own selves, our own tasks, and also we know we're going to die. Man is the only creature, man, women, and children sometimes even, are the only creatures who can be aware of their death. And out of that comes normal anxiety. When I let myself feel that, then I apply myself to new ideas, I write books, I communicate with my fellows, and in other words, the creative interchange of human personality rests upon the fact that we know we're going to die. Of that, the animals in the grass and so on knows nothing. But our knowledge of our death is what gives us a normal anxiety that says to us, make the most of these years you are alive. And that's what I've tried to do. Another source of anxiety that you've described in your writing is our very freedom, our ability to make choices and to have to confront the consequences of those choices. Yes, that's right. Freedom is also the mother of anxiety. If you had no freedom, you'd have no anxiety. That's why the slaves in the films are people without any expression on their faces. They have no freedom. But those of us who do have are alert, alive, we're aware that what we do matters and that we only have about 70 or 80 or 90 years in which to do it. So why not do it and get joy out of it rather than running away from it? I think that's a little capsule of the meaning of anxiety. But isn't there a little bit of a conflict between feeling anxiety and allowing oneself to be open, vulnerable to that feeling of anxiety and then also seeking joy? No. There's a conflict between that and what's generally called happiness or the flat. I would speak of the meaningless forms of feeling good. I'm not against anybody feeling good or having happy hours. But joy is something different from that. Joy is the zest that you get out of using your talents. You're understanding the totality of your being for great aims, the musicians, the men who wrote music, Mozart and Beethoven and the rest of them. They always showed considerable anxiety because they were in the process of loving beauty, of feeling joy when they heard a beautiful combination of notes. Now that's the kind of feeling that goes with creativity. That's why I say the courage to create. Creation does not come out of simply what you're born with. That must be united with your courage, both of which cause anxiety but also great joy. It seems that much of our modern culture, though, is an attempt to cope with this fundamental anxiety by diversions and what you've called banal pleasures. Yeah, well, you just put your finger on the most significant aspect of modern society. We try to avoid anxiety by getting rich, by making $100,000 when we're 21 years of age. By becoming millionaires. Now, none of those things lead to the joy, the creativity that I'm talking about. One can own the world and still be without the inner sense of pleasure, of joy, of courage, of creation.