The Death of False Security: Why Embracing Uncertainty is Essential for a Fulfilling Life

In the West - and maybe in a significant portion of the world by now, since the advent of globalization - we are accustomed to a certain way of living. We have grown fat on the promise of security; of the reduction and/or elimination of risk, and we now feel - largely, anyway - a certain sense of entitlement, as if being made to work for something, or strive for it in any way, is an affront to us, and instead we should be just allowed to take or consume it merely because we exist.   This security - or the idea that such a thing exists - is entirely fictional, and part of the reason why we're experiencing political, social and even economic upheaval is because we have given our allegiance to this misguided concept to such a degree that by now several generations of humans are entirely dependent upon climate-controlled, cuhsiony jobs and expensive homes that make them look as if they've "made it" - and to hell with what it takes to get those.  But this fictional narrative of security is dying - we despearately need it to.  

I've touched on this before to a certain degree.   However, for those of my readers who are in the United States, I want to make you aware:  we're at the beginning of the long emergency here, and there shouldn't be any reason to expect a quick fix to our  years of entropic decline caused (in part, anyway) by our opportunistic plundering of the resources of other nations and territories.   I could disseminate any number of reasons for why this is the case, but that's not what I'm writing about.   I'm writing about death, and in this case, the death of the very fictional sense of security we've allowed ourselves to feel under the layers of years of prosperity propped up by the exploitation of others.   It is our turn to suffer, and we need to let it happen. 

First of all, there is truly no such principle as certainty in the cosmos.   Even gravity, a constant force here on our home planet, is not the single, unchanging constant we believe it to be elsewhere in the universe.    Time - one of our most basic constructs and the mechanism by which we govern nearly every aspect of our life - is not a constant, either.   Even the surface of our own planet teaches us that change is occuring all the time - even when we cannot detect it, as in this example of geologic change that generally goes unnoticeable to us here on the surface.  These alone point to a cosmos full of uncertainy.   Since we are not separate from our cosmos (even though we would prefer to believe that we are), we must understand that changes of all types are occuring around us and in us at every moment - whether we can visibily and audibly detect them or not.   

We have manufactured secure environments - and insulated ourselves to the point where we fear the future and are anxious about the past.  The concept of security is entirelyl fictional, and our collective psyche knows it. 

These facts point to something we have been very reluctant to recognize:   uncertainy is never far from us, and no matter how much we insulate ourselves against its effects, we do so in vain. As citizens of the cosmos, we are governed by all of her laws, not just a few, and the constant renewal of every resource and element - even if that renewal takes place over long timelines and isn't instantly detectable to us - must prove to us that uncertainty is everywhere.   Risk is imminent.  Even if we cannot see it.    We cannot buy, trade, barter or negotiate our way out of it.   There will never be a time when we master the forces of our cosmos to such a degree that we eliminate the possibily of chane, risk and uncertainy.   

In fact, attempting to eliminate risk and uncertainty from our existence has done exactly the opposite of what such a pursuit promises:  it has created a population of dependent, unstable, entitled, warmongering children who cannot manage to get along with either their environs or their neighbors to any degree at all, and who steal and hoard like hungry dogs at a rotting carcass.   In an effort to drive out risk and uncertainty from our lives, we have lost our way, fractured our communities, and ostracized ourselves to such a degree that we can no longer find our way back.   Our desire for security - which is an entirely fictional concept - has driven us to madness.     

But the notion of security is dying.  And it needs to die.  We must embrace the concept of suffering; we must bring back uncertainty.   Statistical evidence even demonstrates that uncertainty creates resilience and flexibility, extends happier moods, and creates humility and fosters creativity and ingenuity.    We are in a downward spiral that reflects our resistance to these, and our inability to recover from missteps or mishaps (and our constant need for affirmation and validation) has made us so desperate now that we are even targeting our children with mood-enhancing drugs to keep them from worry or upset.  This doesn't spell out a great narrative for our future, since our children are the future, and if they can't adjust to uncertainty, problems will appear greater and solutions much thinner!  We need uncertainty - and even suffering - to help us develop our neurological muscles, so to speak. 

Happiness is something we're currently striving for.  We're looking for it everywhere. But it's found in only one place: right now. And we're ignoring now for what we can plan out or plunder for tomorrow, or what we can worry about over yesterday.  Both of those concepts - tomorrow and yesterday - are removed from us.  They are merely functions of memory and anticipation. One is past, the other can't even be seen from where we are.  This false security - which isn't looking so secure anymore - is dying.   And we need it dead.  With its death, we may once again learn that life - real living - takes place only in the margins, the places where we've feared to visit.   How can we appreciate happiness if sorrow has no place in our world? How can we know joy if there is never discomfort? How can we appreciate the warmth of our sun if we never feel the chill of rain?   There is no light without darkness; no darkness without light.  

May we resurrect from the corpse of the over-secure prison a life of true fulfillment - a life where now matters more than what is past or what is to come.