I wouldn't call it an anxiety really, but I've obtained some new perspective. I went from primarily working on app frontend for years using JS, and into a more API backend-ish role using .NET Core. In the former, dependency trees like this never really bothered me, probably because that was the culture around it in the JS world (at least at the time) and perhaps a bunch of other reasons. In the latter, I think .NET's ecosystem has a tradition of fewer external dependencies. It seems like it used to almost be a monolith, where basically Microsoft provided it, maybe a few major libraries existed, or you rolled your own, though that's just my impression of it.

Another huge factor has changed my thinking on dependencies too. My employer has legal and security requirements around all dependencies. Anytime a new dependency is considered, it has to have the license reviewed which takes time, and known CVE's have to be addressed (patched or mitigated otherwise). I consider these good since it helps in the sense that the costs of dependencies forward, but certainly a pain.

So I guess my perspective change is simply one of trying to understand the trade-offs. Some are well worth the cost because they're cheap, you won't get much benefit of your own, and will get benefit from a common one for everyone developing in it (testing libraries are one example). If a UI library is applicable to your project, of course a modern common one is a good choice, though you will pay for a lot of dependencies. Then there are other options which are more context-sensitive. Examples that come to mind are date/time libs, math libs, collection helper libs, etc. Sometimes they make sense to have, but oftentimes today can be substituted for a simpler function, though this can change with time too.

This really just turned into a ramble. So I guess I'll conclude with this: if you're getting started and learning, maybe try and skip libraries until you really feel the pain and then introduce one when you need it. It may help to build up piece-by-piece and reduce the anxiety you feel about it.