Is the world a safe place?

Between nihilism and care

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Notice what you feel as you read these two statements:

The world is an unsafe place, and I shouldn’t forget I’m just a small thing moved around by bigger forces

Care is everywhere. I might not know where I’m going, but I trust that everything will work out.

Which feels more true?

How might you live life differently if you believed the world was fundamentally safe, or if you believed that everything would work out?

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“The world is unsafe” rhymes with dualistic nihilism. The cosmos is indifferent to the tiny splash of atoms that is you. You could die at any moment, whether by drowning, auto-collision, heart-attack. You are a solitary speck of dust on a vast planet in an even vaster cosmos that cares nothing about you.

“Care is everywhere” has a hint of monist-eternalism. “You” are not separate from the world around you. Do you choose to keep breathing when you fall asleep at night, or to fix your bones when they break? Did you choose to learn how to speak? Large forces all around conspire to keep ‘you’ alive at every instant and that is a deep miracle to trust. (Though perhaps you are the conspiracy)

Which is true?

These are stances, not facts. Truth is a very nebulous quality. Death is never far, yes, but life is beautiful strange incredible in how it continues to reach for itself.

Once at seventeen on my dirtbike I U-turned into the opposite lane of traffic. I did not see the car before my front wheel was swept out from under me and my helmet smashed his windscreen. Pure instinct had me shifted my legs, lifting and rearranging myself so that after the impact I was standing, unscathed, holding my bent motorbike.

At the time I understood that as a lesson in mortality — I could die at any moment and I’m just a small vulnerable thing. Now, I notice with wonder how little control or volition I had — how many times a flicker of a feeling had kept this life going.

I have at various times lived from one stance or the other. I do not know what truth is. I can say that life feels more rich when I feel the fear and let go of the constant self-protection. When I surrender. Maybe one day I will live to regret this, but for now I choose care.