With all of the comfort, luxury, excitement, and pleasure that the built environment affords in its almost infinitesimal gradations and its spread over the earth and its lasting power, it seems that as a species we really shouldn't be all that uncomfortable at all, ever again. Of course this aspiration - however nice of an idea it is - will never be attainable by everyone everywhere; perhaps a good run or a golden age here and there where the energy pools and concentrates for some time, before boiling over and undermining itself in good time.
Of course even in the land of milk and honey, in the seat of empire, the certainty and the confidence and comfort of a mastered nature is pierced through with phenomenological glimpses of uncertainty and the wilderness for those left out of the garden, and of course that is to a large extent part of the point and the design. The wilderness is not something to be left behind.
Though for those who would believe it to be otherwise and who would pursue that deceit to its logical end, putting others' bodies before themselves and under themselves as shields would make for a good start in the right direction. But then those others' bodies are subject to the wilderness, and become the wilderness in turn, and the terminus of the project is only pushed further out, and staved off for a little longer.
The nature of this state of affairs is endlessly fascinating and I could spend page after page describing it, transfixed, if I had the time and the energy and the means. But previously I claimed that I'd cut to the chase: what is the nature of uncertainty in the built environment? Is it growing? What are the immediate and practical consequences of this?
To establish a baseline we could try to define some of our terms. Uncertainty is a state of mind and state of being in which a given state of affairs is difficult to understand or anticipate, especially in relation to the immediate set of actions required for perpetuating a living thing, and so the ensuing doubt and loose potentiality of thought tend to lead to watery and half-hearted actions in a number of directions, supposedly to test out one's prospects and more reliably reveal an avenue of action. Uncertainty is fundamentally a kind of vulnerability, or a propensity for being more strongly influenced by outside forces for good or ill, and vulnerability can be good or bad depending on what you are and what you are in the presence of when vulnerable.
One of the more expedient points of departure could be simply describing this uncertainty and this vulnerability phenomenologically, using simpler images of experiences in the wilderness itself, or at least that colloquial wilderness that lies outside the confines of the modern built environment, and then we can transpose this understanding to the built environment itself and perhaps we'll see something else altogether.
Say, you are out on a long hike and lose your way. You are far from any recognizable sign, say a building or a road or a vehicle, or the like, and it is starting to get dark. Or else there is an unforeseen blizzard or whiteout and visibility is cut and the trail disappears. Depending on how prepared you were, this could get complicated and worsen fast, say with limited food and water running out as well. Are the clothes right? What will the weather do? It can get bad.
When you start to have problems such as these, and there is no recourse to say, making a phone call, or communicating with another person to solve the problem or finding really any sort of lead that could begin to address the problem, then a realization begins to descend that you might not be able to solve a certain set of problems, problems that can't simply be waved away as frustrations, but real problems that directly threaten your life, which could have serious consequences indeed, consequences that are directly and immediately experienced and comprehended, and then a certain distinct feeling of being on one's own and under threat of death begins to set in, and a very distinct and vivid panic begins to emerge.
The uncertainty comes in when one analyses the situation and no longer recognizes the required smaller practical steps to achieve what one wants: wet wood doesn't burn like those pre-chopped, pre-cured bundles for sale, and what to eat and how to find it or catch it? How even to put together a decent shelter that will hold together, keep out wind and rain, and keep one warm? How to find water? Is it safe to drink? How to cut wood in the shapes one wants, to do what one wants? How to travel reliably in the direction one wants, and how to even begin to determine what that direction is? And so on.
Cold fingers that no longer possess the dexterity to get something important done, or an empty stomach and weakening muscles and descending confusion and light-headedness, or the growing realization that every action and movement needs to be subjected to a strict economy as the energy is going away. These are scary things, and these are old feelings and instincts that can take on dust with too much complacency, and then they are atrophied when we turn to them. And the more the panic and the fear set in, the more difficult it becomes to act with skill and efficiency.
The vulnerability then sets in: one is directly vulnerable to the vagaries of weather, light, available energy and resources, and what can be organized and incorporated into oneself with one's own limited skills, which directly affects how one feels, how one thinks, and how ultimately one persists.
Granted this terrible experience itself can lead to wonderful results if successfully lived through. One becomes perhaps more grateful for living, and more confident and generous in living, and the nature of the wilderness and the unknown changes along with the changes in oneself. And the skills for affecting this outcome can be cultivated and strengthened; I'll go more into that in a later piece anyway.
This is a vulnerability that is fraught, but that can lead to growth. But it can also be the case that this is the experience that precipitates one's death. And then that is it. That was the chance, the raison d'etre; now one is gone. With a compromised vulnerability, one tips and is overcome.
This illustration works so well because of the stark simplicity, which itself makes a point. If the built environment is stripped away, all of that dense human connection and support goes with it. All of the redundant and nested protections and fail-safes go away, and so the invisible forces sustaining oneself, taken for granted or forgotten or unaccounted for, can be scratched out in the immediate analysis. One can't go into the woods and order up a meal, or ask for directions. One has to pack in one's food, or else forage or hunt for it with one's own faculties, experiences completely set aside in favor of social and logic skills to navigate the world of people and symbols.
And by its own nature and definition, such a form of wilderness is not built, and more importantly, not built for you. It must be navigated on its own terms, without the help of recognizable structures and symbols, and its nature is under constant subtle and at times dramatic change. There are few persistent structures and references one can go back to in order to get oriented, at least for those who have just begun to pay attention in this environment; even this supposedly simple analysis complicates quickly if we look at it any longer. This too we can revisit when the time is right.
At least for now we can use the stripped form of the argument to analyze the built environment, but the discussion has grown long and there is still much more to do. We'll continue on into the built environment in the next post.
