On Fragile Worlds

Day 25

But how does someone get to the point of being unable to deal with questions? Again, I am only speaking from my own experiences here. I said that one of the reasons that there is an issue with questioning is the frailty of the world. One reason that a world can be fragile is simply instability. By which I mean, instability of life. If you have a stable world then you know things. However, if you don't know things then you have an unstable world. The knowledge of things, which is awareness of things of the world, is linked to the stability of the world. They tend to be signs of one another. We generally don't start out with stable worlds, just as we don't start out knowing much. As we grow and change through the years, we start to have worlds which are more stable, and we are more knowledgeable. This is the simple process of growing up. This is also why children can be resilient and easily hurt at the same time, because they are going through this process and are thus on the path of bravery, but also because their world is not yet strong enough to deal with major issues. Remember that issues with the world are like areas of stress in reality, in who we are and what we believe. So we can say that children are especially resilient and vulnerable. This doesn't mean that only children are vulnerable or resilient, because a human can be struck just as badly, but that there is a difference in general. We are are 'growing up' all the time, and all children to somebody else.

Because a new world arises after an old world has fallen or cracked, we can say that worlds are descended from worlds. This is not saying that the future depends on the past in a mechanistic pattern, but that if there was no past then the future would be different. We presume that the 'past' effects the 'future' in some way. (and maybe vise-versa) Or rather, that worlds tend to change over time. They generally tend to get stronger and more powerful. However, this often relies on some sort of stability. Why do we form a conception of the force of gravity, the beauty of a flower, or the exhilaration of a game? Because we have the time and leisure to “stand and stare”.* I don't mean that we are lazy and stare mindlessly at things, but rather that we are able to stand on a stable part of the world and observe what goes on around us on the edges of the world where we aren't are sure about things. We can stand, as opposed to constantly falling through and stumbling in broken worlds. So, something is stable. This is what I mean when I say that worlds tend to be descended from worlds. After all, we don't often make entirely new worlds. Rather, our new worlds look remarkably like our old worlds in many ways. They are entirely different because with a single new gem we have all new gems, but they are similar. Sometimes the world shatters into dust, but more often I think the world shatters into pieces that are a bit larger. Have you ever broken a mirror or a window? Its just like that. The world changes forever when you lose someone precious, but the rivers still flow and the sun still rises for most of us. Thus, even after we have fallen into a new world, we can often eventually regain our balance. However, if the change is too much or the changes are too often, then that becomes exceedingly hard.

The world is our identity. We generally think that the world follows certain rules, or at least certain guidelines. These might be something like “avoid pain”, or “Walking down dark alleyways in the middle of the night is dangerous”. They might be something like “people are mostly good”, or “dogs are usually friendly, unless they are barking at you”. We tend to have people we trust or don't trust and manners we usually follow and expect. We think that the world is a certain way, and should be a certain way in the future. This future we envision tends to look remarkably like the past state of the world, with minor changes upon certain paths. Thus, if we run into a unicorn walking down Main Street, we are much more surprised then if we see a dog walking down Main Street. We expect that we can fall and trip on the sidewalk, and not that the sidewalk will turn into quicksand. Our lives are, most of the time, pretty normal. Anything can happen, and does, but almost all things that happen to us we can immediately understand to some extent. We are often caught flat-footed, but not so often utterly flabbergasted, shocked mindless, and paralyzingly puzzled. How many times have you been shocked, stopped for a second to wrap your mind around what happened or what the question is, and then moved on? You can do this because of a resilient world.

How do you form a resilient world? Slowly and over time. One of the worst parts about growing up with an unstable parent is being unable to predict things. What's going to get you yelled at? I don't know, we'll know when it happens and not before. What rules should you follow? They change every day. Are people kind to you or mean? It depends on some mysterious factor. How do you form a world when everything is always changing? It's damn hard, I'll tell ya. So, when you have a life like that, I think that we tend to go down one of several paths. We can often escape the stress-state – change environment, get to a better place, and you can heal. That's if you're lucky, and/or foolhardy and brave. I did things when I was young that got me out of a similar situation, but it's not because I was overly lucky – its because I was desperate. Escape doesn't always have to be physical, but an unstable life makes ending up with a stable world, and the ability to grow a stable world, very, very difficult. If you're not able to escape, to have the occasional rest and heal, either physically, mentally, or emotionally, then you are unlikely to have a stable world. Its likely to be a fragile world as well. I think that these types of worlds generally form one of three types.

The first type is the cling to a rock type. If the entire world is unstable, then you find some rock of stability in the world and you cling to it like your life depends on it – because it almost does. Maybe you find religion, or football becomes your life. Maybe it's a social structure like being part of a gang, or being the bully on campus. Maybe it's becoming a major anime nerd, or a Pokemon nerd. It's finding and loving something that you can throw your all into. I once spoke to a girl who said that reading the lord of the rings books saved her life, and I believed her. These rocks aren't always big things and systems, but can also be a singe sentence, or a single idea: “the day when men will fall will come one day, but it will not be this day', 'mother loves me', or 'I have to take care of my little sister'. Maybe it's an emotional support dog, or maybe its believing that everybody is out to get you. Ether way, its something to stand on. It's not quite the path of the fortress because it's not complex enough yet, but its the beginnings of that path, it is laying the foundation to escape the path of retaliation and the fragile world.

The second type is the everybody is against me type. This sees the world as the enemy. Every action of the world threatens to destabilize the world they live in, and so nobody is their friend. Nobody and nothing can be relied upon, and every moment that life isn't absolutely sucking is precious. You can live a very moment to moment life, one that is unconcerned with the future. After all, we usually think that the future looks like the past, because of the descent of worlds. Yet if you don't have stable worlds, then you don't have descent of worlds, and so the future seems disconnected from the past. Have you ever met somebody who didn't quite seem to understand why they were constantly in trouble, or why they were constantly broke? You tried to explain it to them, that if you follow these basic rules, don't insult people, and don't fight people then you wont have the problems you do now – but they just can't get it. Or you show them their finances, explain that eating out three meals a day and having no savings is not a recipe for a healthy financial position....and they totally disregard all of your advice, and then blame somebody else for them not having any money. I've done this, lived this. It's very frustruating as the person trying to give advice. It's not like you can give the advice and then just walk away, because they don't understand the advice. You almost have to teach about the existence of rules to follow. Not what those rules are, but that here can be actual rules and guidelines that you follow. Its not that you have to teach them about thinking about their financial position next year, but you have to teach them about being able to think about their financial position tomorrow. If rent is due in three days, you have no savings, and your check came today, then do not go out to a bar tonight and spend a hundred dollars. Simple for most people? Yes. Simple for all people No. These are very unstable world, and worlds which seem unable to become something stable.

What I've seen a lot of times is some person, usually between 25 and 35 years old, who after messing up their life is now going to community college. Maybe they're an ex-con, or have two kids and no co-parent. Maybe they lost the house their parents left them, or had a bad drug habit and dropped out of high school. Maybe they just finally realized that they don't want to be working a sucky minimum wage job all their lives. They have gained the ability to analyze their life and to think about the future. They are beginning to build a stable life, a stable world. They've been through hell and are almost on the other side. I think that there is a reason you don't see people younger then these, who have messed up in the same ways. Sometimes, folk just need time to gain some perspective.

The third type,and the last one I'll talk about here, is the ignore it all type. The one who treats everything as either a joke, or inconsequential. These are worlds which deal with their frailty by doing their best to avoid anything important. Important things disrupt the world. If nothing is important, if nothing really matters, then their world is nice and safe. To be honest, this is the type I have the most trouble with. Someone clinging to a rock is understandable if you can recognize what that rock is. Someone who things the whole world is against them is dangerous, but a recognizably direct kind of dangerous. Someone who is ignoring everything is unpredictable. They'll go whichever way they need to in order to avoid seriously considering something. Maybe you'll say something reasonable and they'll make a joke about it, or maybe they'll pretend you asked something else. Maybe they'll be mocking, or try to change the subject. Are they joking, or do they really believe the conspiracy theory? Is this a deep philosophical question they have, or are they just trying to argue that everybody is wrong all the time? The logic tends to not be sound, and not be consistent. Logical fallacies abound, and are taken as gospel. Are they smiling and nodding at your speech because they're thinking about it, or are they totally going to forget everything you said by the time dinner rolls around? When they mess up can they take responsibility – or is anybody responsible for anything? It's hard to tell because there is no seriousness in the interactions. Sometimes they break out of it because something becomes serious for them, and sometimes they grow out of it over time. Sometimes they don't.

We all do a little of each of these three types of things on occasion. We all sometimes avoid things that are too hard for a while, deal with opposition and people who really are against us, or find a rock to cling to in times of trial. However, major issues arise when we become stuck in those situations and unable to find our way out. This of course is the same old message, that life is movement, and life is change.

* Leisure by W.H. Davies