Do you feel fragile? Are there setbacks or disappointments that you don’t think you could bear?
I have things I depend on…relationships mostly…that I have constructed my life around. I have certain aims and values that I sense I cannot live without. These dependencies make me fragile, vulnerable, anxious. Is there a sane way to deal with this issue?
Let me first examine my dependencies. Where am I fragile? Why? If I inquire carefully, pulling apart the strands of my sensing, I may find that some of these fragilities are unworthy. They reflect my unwillingness to face a challenge, my lack of courage or confidence to deal with the efforts that would be required if my fears are realized. Faced with real situations, I am often more resilient than I think I am.
But there are deeper dependencies, ones that would seemingly extinguish any remaining wish to live. How do I deal with these?
It seems to me that much of this fragility comes from a false sense of certain knowledge. If this thing happens, this is what will follow and this is how it will end. The discovery on the other side of the unbearable event is unknown to me. My imaginings are not the whole story, they never are. This has been shown to me many times. How many losses also prove to be a gain?
Can I go deeper? Life is inherently unreliable. It is temporary and highly uncertain. There is no permanence anywhere in the outer world. The structure of dependency I have created is inherently unstable. I know that I am insufficient. Can I, while here, find something that is reliable and cannot be taken away? This is not an idle philosophical question. I would say this is a real work question that is worth a lifetime of inquiry.
