Fear and Certainty

Things that alter my perception, of reality or of myself, have always frightened me. A gesture, an object, a feeling, or a moment have the power to act as a sudden and inexplicable crack in the smooth veneer of existence. We assume that reality is a solid block of concrete, but what if it's actually a box made of the thinnest glass that just looks like concrete? It appears sturdy, impenetrable, simple to the point of disregard. But a crack, a chip, a hole, the tiniest broken fragment can destroy that feeling of surety in an instant. To some end, this is the purpose of taking drugs--to willfully challenge or change one's notions or perceptions of reality. And I supposed that, pursued recreationally, it can be fun; but only because it is play-acting. Taking drugs is like buying a ticket to certain dissolution, intentional coming apart, knowingly altering, losing yourself and finding something else. The experience is finite. It is neither random nor continuous. It's a show you go to, and part of the enjoyment is the awareness that it will eventually end.

Experiencing a break with reality that you did not elect to take is something altogether different.

Discovering that something you always assumed to be stable is actually incredibly fragile--finding that something you always believed to be solid is in fact hollow, and that that hollowness creates the possibility of fullness of a different sort, the potential to be full of unknown and unthinkable things--it pulls the rug out from under you. It sets your assumptions and convictions alight, and your sense of certainty about the foundation of your life withers, curls up, floats away like ashes and smoke.

What possibilities scare me? What ideas fill me with dread?

Looking at something I see every day and realizing it's suddenly different. Something has moved, a color is missing, a size or shape has changed.

Waking from a dream and then living its events and narratives in real time, unable to deviate or change the course of my own actions.

Running into different versions of myself on the street: my selves that made a better choice here, a wrong decision there. They are exactly like me, and nothing like me.

Losing my ability to understand any language or communicate with anyone--trying to speak but no one understanding me, trying to listen to others but finding their words incomprehensible.

Things moving that should be still, or things being still that should be moving. Walls wavering, a bird suspended in the air.

Someone or something that has always existed in my life suddenly and inexplicably disappearing; a person I know is gone, but no one else has any memory of them. A possession I see every day is suddenly missing, and no one else remembers ever having seen it before.

Finding someone hiding in my house while I am alone.

Discovering an infestation when I least expect it.

Rapid, omnipresent and nonsensical voices.

Feeling my heart stop.

My sense of reality, my sense of myself, disappearing.

Losing your grip on reality is like being on a barge in the middle of the ocean with an anchor that weighs 2,000 pounds, but sometimes that anchor spontaneously disappears for stretches of time. You're moored in one spot, you're used to the bobbing and the storms and the drifting around in a general area, but you're more or less stationary because of that anchor--you know the bounds of where you are and what you're capable of. Then, without warning, without any reason or predictability, it disappears. And you're drifting, and you have no way of knowing how long it will last, or if it will ever come back again. You have no control.

The disappearance of the anchor isn't even the worst part. The worst part is the uncertainty. People can live with most anything, so long as there exists a degree of certainty. 

If you are born on a barge that has an anchor that you can pull up and drop down whenever you like, you have an ideal situation. You are still subject to trials and obstacles, but you can determine when you want to be stationary and when you want to move. You can decide, to a degree, where you want to go and what you want to do. You have the possibility of change or the possibility of continuity, but whatever you choose, it's you who does the choosing.

If you are born on a barge that is permanently anchored, you will have stability but no variety. You know exactly what you can and can't do, where you can and can't go, and you can count on the predictability of your circumstances.

If you are born on a barge that has no anchor, a barge that drifts forever and never stops moving, you may have no home but you will have freedom. You may slow down to a crawl at times, and sweep along swiftly at others, but there is at least the certainty of its fluidity. You can accept that you will never stop moving.

But if you live on a barge that sometimes has an anchor, and sometimes does not, and you have no control or warning about when the anchor will exist and when the anchor will disappear... You are suspended in a state of continuous uncertainty. Unreality. You can never relax, you can never get comfortable, you can never feel peace. There, always waiting, is the possibility of sudden, random and violent change. 

You could be anchored for ten years, becoming wholly a part of the place that you occupy. First feeling frustration at your lack of mobility, longing for variety, slowly you become accustomed to the life you've been building. You spend some time feeling trapped, feeling limited. But you find peace in the acceptance of your surroundings, and use the limitations and boundaries of your life like support struts. They shore you up, they can be leaned against and built upon, they can bear weight. Yet the instant that the anchor disappears, it's all gone. The foundation of your life no longer exists.

You can drift for ten years, learning to let go of attachments. Sometimes you feel a deep loneliness as you pass by people who are standing still together, resentful of the stability that comes with being stationary, yearning for the simplicity of a life with definite borders. But you release the idea of permanence and embrace the constant change. You are bound by nothing, restrained by no one, unburdened. Then suddenly an anchor drops, and drags you to a halt, and you're trapped. The foundation of your life no longer exists.

Without certainty, there isn't only fear, but there is always fear.