ABSTRACT
The fear that we could break through and fall into a hole in our being at any moment is expressed in two existential attempts to escape, according to Tillich: one either want to retreat from the others or throw oneself into their arms. Fear is thus conquered in a vertical mode, so to speak. Individuals must sort out their anxious feelings of disaffection, dispossession and disembedding for themselves and with their god, as the case may be. The fear of fear rears its head as soon as someone's otherwise unremarkable difference fails to resonate or connect with others. Our fears have changed along with the costs. If, at every fork in the road, we face the prospect of ending up with those who are left behind waiting for a 'second chance' – because life no longer allows for long hauls, only short hops – then anxiety really is, as Kierkegaard says, 'freedom's actuality as the possibility of possibility'.
