We can feel insecure in several practical dimensions: financial,
physical, social, interpersonal, & emotional.
But a much deeper level of insecurity—existential
insecurity— cannot
be solved by any of the security-operations
that will resolve our
ordinary worries about not being safe enough.
If we explore our underlying existential insecurity,
we might discover creative ways to deal with this Malaise. OUTLINE:
I. ORDINARY FORMS OF SECURITY AND INSECURITY
II. EXISTENTIAL INSECURITY
III. SECURITY-OPERATIONS TO COMBAT INSECURITY
IV.
HUMAN PORCUPINES POP OUR BUBBLES OF ILLUSION V.
FIVE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
ORDINARY INSECURITY AND
EXISTENTIAL
INSECURITY I. ORDINARY FORMS OF SECURITY
AND
INSECURITY
There are several forms of
practical security:
financial, physical, social, interpersonal, & emotional.
Financial
security means we have enough money —income,
assets, savings, investments, insurance—
to prevent most financial troubles in the future.
Physical
security means that our living and working conditions
are safe from fire, flood, riot, war, accident, & violence.
And health-security means that we have good ways
of protecting ourselves from disease, injury, & disability.
We are socially secure when our
social standing is assured,
when we have the approval and recognition of the people we respect.
Interpersonal
security refers to close personal relationships.
We often seek relationship-stability thru marriage and family.
We all appreciate good personal relationships, but children,
especially,
need the security and protection of dependable, loving parents.
Emotional
or psychological security
means we can depend on ourselves.
We are self-confident, internally-strong, & self-reliant.
When these desirable conditions are missing,
we become insecure:
When our incomes are uncertain and our savings small,
we might experience economic or financial insecurity.
When the conditions protecting our health and safety are absent,
we might worry about catching diseases or being physically hurt.
We might become socially insecure if we lose our friends.
If our personal relationships are unstable—or
even non-existent—
we might feel threatened by interpersonal insecurity.
And when our inner selves become unstable,
we feel emotionally and psychologically insecure.
II. EXISTENTIAL INSECURITY
But beyond all these forms of ordinary
security/insecurity
lies another level of
vulnerability—existential
insecurity.
Even when we have every form of objective security and safety,
we might still feel threatened and unstable.
Existential insecurity differs from ordinary insecurity in five ways:
1. Instead of being the result of unsafe
conditions,
our existential insecurity is free-floating and generalized.
It is an unexplained sense of uneasiness gnawing at our guts.
2. Existential insecurity has nothing to do
with identifiable threats —even
tho we might try to project
our uncaused precariousness
onto definite dangers, perils, & menaces in the real world.
It is more acceptable to fear crime, cancer, or car-theft
than to admit that we are scared
and insecure for no particular
reason.
Existential insecurity often intrudes
when we know that
everything is
safe and sound.
3. All forms of ordinary security/insecurity
rise and fall
with the objective conditions for our safety, health, & well-being.
But existential insecurity is a permanent condition of our beings.
Telling ourselves that we should
feel protected and confident
does not abolish our inward, underlying insecurity.
4. Each form of security/insecurity is
separate from the others.
Financial troubles might have far-reaching implications,
but being poor need not affect our interpersonal or emotional lives.
However, existential insecurity threatens us in every dimension. Everything seems
shaky, unstable, exposed, & vulnerable.
5. And finally, we cannot cure our existential
insecurity.
We know how to obtain various forms of objective safety and
security.
But even if we are rich, healthy, shielded from all external dangers,
socially well established, with good marriages and families,
we might still feel fundamentally
insecure.
III. SECURITY-OPERATIONS TO
COMBAT
INSECURITY
Because we often confuse ordinary and
existential insecurity,
we use security-operations
that would be
appropriate
for obtaining financial, physical, or emotional security
when we are really struggling with our existential insecurity.
If our deep vulnerability disguises itself as ordinary fears,
putting more locks on the doors or buying more insurance
will not overcome our existential insecurity.
If we have all the conditions of a reasonably secure life —but
still we tremble—we
should look more deeply into ourselves.
Love
is often one of our largest security-blankets.
But trying to strengthen and secure our relationships —by
assurances of fidelity, loyalty, exclusiveness, & love—
will not overcome our
existential
insecurity.
Having a job is another major
security-operation. Work gives us
constructive ways to organize our time.
But if we lose our jobs, our Existential Malaise might be disclosed.
We construct safe worlds for ourselves.
We surround ourselves with others who agree with our world-views.
But if we have structured our lives to control existential
insecurity,
any small hole in the security-blanket might release our whole
Malaise.
Thus minor disruptions sometimes 'cause' catastrophic
consequences.
IV. HUMAN PORCUPINES POP OUR
BUBBLES OF ILLUSION
Some people frequently challenge our
security-operations.
If we picture each of us encapsulated in a thin security-bubble,
these professional disillusioners are like human porcupines:
They destroy all the security-bubbles that come near—including
their own.
Everyone within range feels existentially
insecurity.
Such bubble-poppers are very intense
people;
they will not allow us to cling to our cultural evasions and escapes;
they undermine our security-operations and pull away our
security-blankets.
In the presence of these spiny creatures, we must be serious;
they force us to ask ultimate questions about the meaning of
life.
At first we do not appreciate their bubble-popping function,
unless the eruption of our existential insecurity opens new
possibilities.
Whatever games, techniques, operations, &
devices we invent,
these methods will never overcome our existential insecurity.
The measures effective against ordinary perils and threats
simply do not work
when applied to our existential precariousness.
V. FIVE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ORDINARY INSECURITY AND
EXISTENTIAL INSECURITY
Ordinary
Insecurity
Existential Insecurity
1. Specific feeling of vulnerability.
1.
Non-specific, indefinable,
unintelligible
uneasiness.
2. Caused by the absence
of
2. Not caused by lack of definite,
specific conditions of security.
objective security
conditions;
arises from within.
3. Comes and goes with conditions 3.
Continuously-present, permanent
of security—temporary.
precariousness (sometimes
repressed).
4. Each kind of insecurity affects
4. Pervades and threatens
only one dimension of
life
all dimensions
of life. —isolatable.
5. We know how to
obtain
5. Cannot be overcome
by our efforts;
the missing
security.
we cannot
achieve ultimate
security.
Questions
for Discussion
1. Which form of security/insecurity is most
important to you?
2. During what periods in your life were you very
secure or very insecure?
3. Are your everyday activities intended to create
security?
4. Have you learned to live with a certain degree of
insecurity?
5. Do various forms of security/insecurity sometimes
become confused?
For
example, when you seek financial security
are you
sometimes also seeking emotional or psychological security?
6. What are your main security-blankets?
Job,
love, family?
7. Are your security-operations sometimes
excessive?
Are you
really trying to overcome your existential insecurity?
8. Do you think that paranoia might be a sign of
existential insecurity?
9. Are you a human porcupine, popping everyone's
security-bubbles?
10. Do you enjoy pulling away other people's
security-blankets?
This has now become a chapter
in a small book called Inward
Suffering.