Fog, fragility and a walrus
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair
~ Paul of Tarsus, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 4:8 ESV
We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.
~ Seneca
Some days, it feels like you’re walking into a wall of fog.
In this post, I wrote about our basic urge to avoid pain and, on the contrary, the necessity of pain in order to grow.
To clarify: physical pain is not a prerequisite to personal growth; growth is about overcoming challenging circumstances. This may include experiencing pain but also encompasses dealing with loss, confronting failure, coping with conflict; injustice, anger, stress…it’s a long list.
Growth happens in our response to challenge: working hard, fighting back, making difficult decisions, giving things up, doing scary things, accepting risk and…it’s another long list—so large is our arsenal against life’s challenges.
In my case—a slipped disc—physical pain was the challenge: random pain and nebulous sensations consumed my entire attention. I could respond, or succumb to the pain and crawl under the bedsheets.
Fragility-a working model
Fragility is a state we find ourselves in when confronted by challenge. It consists of two things:
- Suffering, or, just as real, the threat thereof
- Uncertainty
Consider an example without physical pain: the entrepreneur staking their livelihood on an innovative business idea.
- Threat of suffering (losing everything)? Check!
- Massive uncertainty? Check!
Fragility is like a wine glass teetering on the table’s edge—it’s about to fall and shatter into pieces—the opposite of progress. To avoid being shattered, freeze up and do nothing! Doing nothing doesn’t hurt, at least in the short term. It’s also easy, which is good for the soul under pressure.
But even then, fragility, like all things negative, ironically defaults to a positive feedback loop; it’s going to get worse before it gets better. In fact, it will increase ad infinitum until the decision has been made, the die cast, the challenge overcome.
This is the only way to deal with it. At the point of utmost fragility, something has to happen. When fragility is spiralling out of control, I focus on the the only thing over which I do have control—the direction of my next step.
What the fog?!
So we wade into the fog with our fragility. Some days are clearer than others but actually, we are walking into fog the whole time. Progress is just a long chain of steps we take. Hopefully, we can look back and see the road less traveled by (after Robert Frost). The fog is what we make of it—we will never remove uncertainty from life, but we can choose to accept it or be terrified of it.
Who are you?
I was browsing through my shortcuts app and came across this. I can’t recall what I was trying to do but I had obviously given up and forgotten about it.
If all else fails, it helps me to remind myself that life is outrageous, unfair and absurd.
If it ends with I am the walrus, then that’s fine by me.
