Hope and Fear

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/12/descartes-hope-fear/

Extract:

In a sentiment that calls to mind Kierkegaard’s insistence that anxiety powers rather than hinders creativity, Descartes writes:

When hope is so strong that it altogether drives out fear, its nature changes and it becomes complacency or confidence. And when we are certain that what we desire will come to pass, even though we go on wanting it to come to pass, we nonetheless cease to be agitated by the passion of desire which caused us to look forward to the outcome with anxiety. Likewise, when fear is so extreme that it leaves no room at all for hope, it is transformed into despair; and this despair, representing the thing as impossible, extinguishes desire altogether, for desire bears only on possible things.