Sartre borrows Kierkegaard’s image of dizziness: if I look over a cliff and feel vertigo, it tends to take the form of the sickening sensation that I might, compulsively and inexplicably, throw myself off the edge. The more freedom of movement I have, the worse this anxiety becomes. In theory, if someone tied me down securely near the edge, my vertigo would disappear, for I would know that I could not throw myself off and could therefore relax. If we could try a similar trick with the anxiety of life in general, everything would seem a lot easier.
