THE “NICHTS DER WELT”: ON ANXIETY AND TRUST

The author describes a limit situation in which he found himself during his journey in Egypt. He describes this experience as a kind of panic attack and associates this experience with what Heidegger called Grundstimmung. As a Daseinsanalyst, the author decided not to avoid this exceptional and terrifying inner turmoil but, on the contrary, to describe day after day his feelings, emotions, the sense of strangeness and homelessness while at the same time rereading “Sein und Zeit”. The author reports being able to experience in his flesh, beyond any theoretical approach, what Heidegger puts into one of his main concepts, Angst. This concept delivers the uncanny experience of the meaninglessness of existence, of “not-being-at-home”. He describes his experience which permitted him to vividly explore through Heidegger's Daseinsanalysis the way a human being lets natural entities be, the way he has to face his finitude through Angst, and finally, the way Dasein is confronted with “nothingness”. Nevertheless, the author wonders, whether the feeling of “unfamiliarity” or “errancy” might also be the source of the “clearing” and lead us to experience of authentic life? Step by step, Angst is questioning “trust”. What does it mean to trust the world or oneself? This article intertwines theory and Erlebnis, such that living experience is manifested by Heidegger's hermeneutic and, conversely, Heidegger's hermeneutic is embodied in living experience. This article bridges an ontic journey in Egypt and an ontological journey in which Dasein's Being unfolds.