I. ORDINARY SECURITIES AND INSECURITIES

II. EXISTENTIAL INSECURITY

III. THE INTERPLAY OF THESE TWO KINDS OF INSECURITY

IV. THE ERUPTION OF EXISTENTIAL INSECURITY

A. Chaotic Times Threaten Our Familiar Securities.

B. Human Porcupines Pop Our Bubbles of Illusion.

C. Visual Disorientation Scrambles Our Minds.

VI. BECOMING FUNDAMENTALLY SECURE

VII. JUDGE FOR YOURSELF

     The relative, finite securities of life (and their absence)
are so well understood that they hardly need to be discussed:

     We are all familiar with the notion of financial security:
having enough savings, income, and insurance
so that we don't have to worry about our financial future.

     Likewise we understand the conditions for health and safety
—the ways in which we can be physically secure, protected from
the ravages of disease, fire, flood, riot, war, accident, violence, etc.

     Our security of status is less tangible.
It depends entirely on the approval of other people,
but there are many ways we can attempt to gain and keep status.

     We may also seek interpersonal security
—the assurance that someone else will "always be there".
Relationship stability is often sought thru marriage and family.
Children especially need the protection of dependable, loving parents.

     And finally, we seek emotional security
—being able to trust ourselves and feel internally strong and dependable.
This self-confidence comes very close to 'existential security'.

     When any of these conditions of security are missing, vulnerability results:
When our incomes are uncertain and our savings small,
we may experience economic insecurity.
When the conditions protecting our health and safety are absent,
we may worry about catching diseases or being physically hurt.
We may become socially insecure when embarrassing facts come to light
or when we fall out of favor with our friends.
If our families or relationships are troubled,
we may feel threatened by interpersonal insecurity.
And when we sense our inner selves disintegrating,
we realize the importance of emotional security.

     Many of these ordinary securities are interrelated:
Money often provides the basis for other kinds of security.
For example, money is very useful for purchasing physical comfort and safety.
But money alone cannot buy interpersonal or emotional security.
Being rich may be one of the best ways to be respected in some social circles,
but other sub-cultures ostracize people for having too much money.
And some rich people are among the most existentially insecure:
Once they have acquired financial security,
they discover that they continue to feel just as vulnerable as before.

Ch. 11  EXISTENTIAL INSECURITY: SECURITY-OPERATIONS FAIL by JAMES PARK  267

I. EXISTENTIAL INSECURITY

     When all the objective conditions of security are present
and we still feel deeply insecure, the problem may be existential:

     1. Instead of arising from specific intelligible vulnerabilities,
this internal uncertainty is free-floating and generalized
—a total sense of uneasiness gnawing at our guts.

     2. The deeper insecurity has nothing to do with identifiable threats.
But perhaps we prefer to project our uncaused precariousness
onto some definite peril, menace, or danger in the world,
because it is more acceptable to fear crime, cancer, or car-theft
than to admit that we are scared and insecure for no particular reason.
But mind can neither comprehend nor control this deepest insecurity-of-being.
Rather than resulting from thinking, it is existentially disclosed from within.
It often intrudes when we know that everything is safe and sound.

     3. Practical and psychological insecurities come and go
with the rise and fall of the objective conditions for security.
We may feel relatively secure and settled when we have good jobs
and our interpersonal relationships are going well.
But if we get laid off or divorced,
we understandably suffer financial or interpersonal insecurity.

     Existential insecurity, in contrast, is not temporary but permanent.
It may be repressed (even to the point of obliviousness)
by telling ourselves that we have all the conditions of objective security
and therefore that we should feel protected and confident.
But usually the pervasive insecurity-of-being seeps out anyway.

     4. Each kind of finite security is isolatable from the others.
Our financial troubles may have far-reaching implications,
but they need not affect our interpersonal or emotional lives.
And neither does a shaky marriage mean that we will do poorly in business.
(We may succeed even better if our jobs become our new life-anchors.)

     But existential insecurity does not threaten limited dimensions of life.
Everything seems shaky, unstable, exposed.
Whatever we touch takes on the color of insecurity.

     5. And worst of all, the deepest insecurity cannot be cured by our efforts.
We may attempt to treat this inward sense of turmoil
as if it could be overcome by gaining more objective security,
but we may discover that financial, physical, and interpersonal security
still do not provide ultimate refuge and protection.
We may be rich, healthy, and shielded from all external dangers
—and still be existentially insecure.

268      OUR EXISTENTIAL PREDICAMENT: LONELINESS, DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, & DEATH

III. THE INTERPLAY OF THESE TWO KINDS OF INSECURITY

    If you think that existential insecurity
might be one of your problems,
you will find the complete version of this chapter—8 pages in all—
in Our Existential Predicament.
For details, go to the publisher's website: www.existentialbooks.com.