Age Of Anxiety

The well-known contemporary poet, W. H. Auden, was one of the first to call our period in history “The Age of Anxiety.” Since that time, others have picked up on it because it does seem to characterize our time in history-this feeling of apprehension, of worry, of doubt, of uneasiness about the future. It is a mood that has affected our culture. We find it in our art and literature and music. If you go to New York City to the Museum of Modern Art, you will see a painting by Andre Rousseau (often called the “Godfather” of modern painting) of a gypsy woman sleeping out in the open with her guitar by her side. It’s all very peaceful, except in the background there is a menacing lion. There is no explanation, no clue as to why the lion is there. That’s why the artist does it that way. There is often no rational explanation for our anxieties, but they are there. And, as you…