Or can we recontextualize the “problem” with health?

What is this neurosis in the heart of the well-adjusted? Is it the cost of maintaining equilibrium in a chaotic world?

The Concept of Health

We often think of health as the absence of illness, as if wellness is defined solely in opposition to sickness. But is health a fragile stasis, a tenuous balance against the abyss of disorder? Perhaps we moderns are “healthy” only in a shallow sense—managing symptoms but masking an underlying turmoil.

Nietzsche, of course, would challenge any simplistic notion of health. To him, health is not a fixed state but a dynamic expression of one’s ability to affirm life, create, and overcome. In Nietzschean terms, the healthy individual does not merely avoid sickness but harnesses their inner tensions and contradictions in the service of becoming—of self-overcoming. But herein lies the rub: today’s “healthy” person often suppresses the conflict that might drive them to other modes of being. They seek comfort, not growth. This is where the neurosis manifests, not as overt sickness but as stifled potential.

Neurosis and the Modern Condition

With its obsession with productivity, achievement, and control, the modern world might breed neurosis precisely in its healthy adherents. These individuals follow society’s prescriptions for health—exercise, mindfulness, career success—yet they feel an underlying malaise. Why? Because these forms of health might be devoid of depth and meaning. They quiet the chaos, but they do not transform it. To be “healthy” in this sense is to manage one’s neurosis, not transcend it.

Freud, too, would have something to say here. He might argue that the neurosis of the healthy stems from the repression of instinctual drives, the sacrifice of primal energies to the demands of civilization. These “healthy” individuals are neurotic precisely because they have conformed too well to societal expectations, burying their true desires under a veneer of normalcy.

The Plateau as a Crisis of Meaning

Whether in skill development, career growth, or personal health, a plateau is often seen as a problem—something to be quickly addressed with new techniques, strategies, or interventions. When we hit a wall, our instinct is to hammer away at it, believing that with enough effort, the problem will dissolve and progress will resume.

But this attitude is deeply flawed. The plateau might not be simply a technical hurdle; it might represent a more profound, existential confrontation with the limits of our current way of being. When forward progress halts, the healthy, well-adjusted individual feels a sense of failure, anxiety, and even neurosis. But why? Is it because the plateau itself is a problem? Or is it because our understanding of what progress means is shallow?

Our contemporary culture places great emphasis on the problem-solving attitude. We are expected to tackle each problem efficiently and precisely, like an engineer resolving mechanical faults. Yet, in this approach, we reduce complex human experiences—emotions, existential doubt, intellectual stagnation—into problems that need solving when, in fact, they may be calling for something far more profound: intensity.

Consider the modern “healthy” individual—an archetype of success. They eat well, exercise regularly, meditate to manage stress, and optimize their productivity. And yet, there is often a subtle unrest beneath this polished exterior. The neurosis of the healthy is not the result of any apparent dysfunction but somewhat of their relentless striving for optimization. The plateau, which they see as a failure to improve, mirrors their discontent. Instead of liberating them, their endless problem-solving attitude enslaves them to the need for perpetual growth.

This is a neurotic relationship with the self. The individual feels acute anxiety when they cannot solve the plateau, but perhaps the real issue is that they misunderstand the plateau itself. What if the plateau is not a problem but a necessary part of the human experience, an invitation to deepen one’s relationship with uncertainty and limitation? A point of intensity, as Deleuze and Guattari would have it.

In A Thousand Plateaus, the plateau is a state of sustained intensity without a directed goal, unlike the linear progressions we are familiar with in traditional thought. They contrast it with the “arborescent” model, where life, growth, and knowledge are structured like a tree, with roots leading to branches—a metaphor for hierarchical thinking, where there is always a beginning and an end. Deleuze and Guattari reject this structure, instead proposing a “rhizomatic” way of thinking, which spreads out in all directions with no clear origin or destination.

Their concept of the plateau rejects climax and resolution. A plateau is not an obstacle to be overcome; it is a space of continuous, unending potential. It has no culmination because it is not meant to reach a peak and fall. In their world, a plateau is an active, dynamic state, always in process, without the need to be resolved into a higher state of “being.”

The Plateau as a Space of Creation, Not Solution

Rather than seeing the plateau as a period of stagnation or even a place of passive dwelling, as Deleuze and Guattari suggest, we will treat it as an arena of creative tension. The plateau is where neurosis is born, and the individual can transmute that neurosis into something more.

From this perspective, the plateau is not about endless intensity without resolution (as Deleuze might say), nor is it about solving problems to restore progress (as the modern mind might say). Instead, the plateau is a space where the creative act of self-overcoming happens, where we confront the neurotic need to solve everything, and in that confrontation, we create new modes of being. It becomes the breeding ground for existential transformation, not just a multiplicity of options as Deleuze would have it, but a radical act of creation that refuses both stagnation and progress in the conventional sense.

The Will to Power vs. The Will to Solve

This is where our Nietzschean appropriation comes in. The Deleuzian plateau can be repurposed to challenge the will to solve—the neurosis of modernity. Nietzsche’s will to power seeks to affirm life and embrace struggle as a creative force, whereas the problem-solving attitude reduces life to a series of technical challenges to be managed.

Here, the healthy individual (the one who, in Nietzsche’s terms, is capable of self-overcoming) does not try to escape the plateau or even luxuriate in its multiplicities. Instead, they confront the plateau as a site of existential battle, where the neurotic need for resolution is burned away, revealing the raw potential for new modes of existence.

Conclusion: A Plateau of Conflict, Not Comfort

Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of the plateau as a space of sustained intensity without climax offers a radical alternative to linear, goal-oriented thinking. However, the plateau is not merely a multiplicity, nor is it a comfortable zone of sustained creation. It is a battlefield where the neurotic problem-solving attitude clashes with the more profound will to power, where the modern compulsion to overcome is dismantled, revealing the creative possibility of transformation.

In our misuse, the plateau becomes a space of radical confrontation with the self. It is not a problem to be solved, nor a space of endless play without consequences. It is a crucible where neurosis is confronted and transmuted into new values and new ways of being. Are you willing to stay on the plateau long enough to engage the limits of your desire to solve? If you can endure this conflict, you may not merely move past the plateau but become something new.