There are distinct moments in one's life when one's safety is directly being threatened, when that feeling of surrounding social support drops away, and the feeling that one is on one's own begins to set in. This can happen in many different ways, and the frequency and severity of these events can depend on one's historical and social position. Larger scale disruptions like natural disasters, pandemics, riots and revolutions, financial panics, and wars tend to make these events more frequent and likely, but the smaller events themselves can happen to anyone at any time.
Phenomonologically these moments carry with them distinct experiences that are unforgettable, and which make lasting changes to one's global emotional state. Here one can expect terror and panic, and the lessons and forebodings those things come with, but with those experiences also flow a whole other spectrum of processing and revelations, such as relief, gratefulness, confidence and faith, and the like. The entire process is at the same time the process of reawakening older instincts and experiential ranges, all of which can help one cope with larger and more sustained disruptive events.
The forceful and kinetic nature of these events are such that they are very unpredictable. Nevertheless these experiences can be constructive, or they can go very badly, depending on one's previous history and constitution, which can be cultivated in modest amounts. Numerous cultures and traditions across time have recognized the need for this cultivation and the power of these lived experiences, and have built up practices to account for them.
Partially controlled destabilizing events such as going into the wilderness prepared, taking powerful hallucinatory substances in a controlled and intentional setting, or engaging in deep meditation or partaking in other intensive spiritual practices are just some examples. These activities allow one's mind to press down onto those base instincts, which are otherwise neglected from being suspended above the fundamentals for so long.
This feeling is not enough for lasting change, however, and will evaporate off over time if not acted on. As a catalyst, it is a potent driving motivation for cultivating traditional techniques and community, building up knowledge and resources, putting effective practice in place, and so on.
Phenomenological discussions are fraught with the provincial subjectivity of the analyst. There are many far less privileged than I - whether via combinations of class, race, gender, sexuality, geographic location, or etc. - that have existed in a tremendous state of uncertainty towards their outer social environment, all too often hostile to their existence, who have been forced to cultivate a resilient consciousness to survive, but who will nevertheless be crushed by a system overwhelmingly stacked against them.
And for that matter, there are those far more privileged than I - who, buttressed by a system stacked overwhelmingly in their favor - never have to come to terms subjectively with their own individual frailty and become resilient as an individual, and who will live to die peacefully in their sleep surrounded by their treasures. That said, being a fabulously wealthy person cooped up in a bunker somewhere, refusing to grow spiritually and intellectually, and hard at work scheming on how to put one over on the private security and hired help to deliver them to safety, sounds like a little slice of hell to me.
My interest is not in prioritizing my own subjective experiences and learned coping mechanisms as the way forward, but in offering them up as avenues of interest for those interested. Next up: this series' namesake, the nature of uncertainty in the built environment.
