You Are Not the Scream | The Philosophy of Fear

Edvard Munch heard a scream, and he painted it. Everyone knows The Scream as the face of panic, but look at his hands: he isn't screaming. He's covering his ears against a scream he hears. A philosophy of fear for anyone frozen by anxiety right now, through three things hidden in Munch's painting, the Stoic Seneca, and Arjuna's freeze in the Bhagavad Gita. Play this on the nights the "what ifs" won't stop. If you're struggling right now, please talk to someone: US 988 (call or text) · UK & ROI Samaritans 116 123 · anywhere else: findahelpline.com Sources · Edvard Munch, diary (Nice, 22 January 1892) and his later account of the walk · British Museum, "Edvard Munch: Love and Angst" (2019), on the lithograph's inscription · National Museum of Norway (2021), on the pencil inscription "Could only have been painted by a madman" · Munch Museum, on Munch's 1908–09 stay at Dr Daniel Jacobson's clinic, Copenhagen · Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 13.4 (our translation) · The Bhagavad Gita, tr. Edwin Arnold, The Song Celestial (1885) · Lieberman et al. (2007), "Putting Feelings Into Words", Psychological Science 18(5) Art (public domain unless noted) · Edvard Munch: The Scream (1893) and its lithograph (1895, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0), Self-Portrait with Cigarette, Night in Saint-Cloud, The Day After, Evening on Karl Johan, Despair, Anxiety, Melancholy, The Girls on the Bridge, Daniel Jacobson, Self-Portrait in the Clinic, Kragerø in Spring, The Night Wanderer, The Sun and Men Turned towards the Sun (Aula, University of Oslo) · Photos of works in the National Museum of Norway: Nasjonalmuseet / Børre Høstland, CC BY 4.0 · Eugène Jansson: Hornsgatan by Night (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), Dawn over Riddarfjärden (Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde) · Vilhelm Hammershøi: Interior in Strandgade, Sunlight on the Floor (SMK, Copenhagen) · Bhagavad Gita paintings: illustrated manuscript (British Library), Krishna and Arjuna in the chariot (British Museum), Arjuna and Krishna confront Karna (Philadelphia Museum of Art), Sri Krishna preaching the Gita to Arjun (Kashmir School) · Seneca–Socrates double herm, Antikensammlung Berlin: photo Mark Landon, CC BY 4.0 Archival film (public domain) · Friedrichstraße in Berlin (1896) · Coney Island at Night (Edwin S. Porter, 1905) · A Sea Cave near Lisbon (Robert W. Paul, 1896) · Rough Sea at Dover (Birt Acres, 1895) · La Sortie de l'usine Lumière à Lyon (Louis Lumière, 1895) · Kaliya Mardan (Dadasaheb Phalke, 1919) Music: original score. Piano: Salamander Grand Piano by Alexander Holm (CC BY 3.0). Researched and directed by team Soul-Making. #philosophy #anxiety #edvardmunch #fear