I was so relieved to find a section in my reading for grad school on Cartesian Anxiety. It appears that I am not alone in my polarized thinking:

The anxiety is best put as a dilemma: either we have a fixed and stable foundations for knowledge, a point where knowledge starts, is grounded, and rests, or we cannot escape some sort of darkness, chaos, and confusion. Either there is absolute grounds for foundations or everything falls apart… This feeling of anxiety arises from the craving for an absolute ground. When this craving cannot be satisfied, the only other possibility seems to be nihilism or anarchy.

This is how I feel all the time! It’s the pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other, from order to chaos. The trick is to find a balance between both like the Universe: ordered chaos, chaotic order.

Easier said than done, of course. I was just happy to see my personal existential validated in writing.