Living in Free Fall
Published:
I have recently talked to a friend about the furniture I put in the apartment I rent. It is nothing fancy—almost everything I have lives on IVAR shelves from IKEA. The shelves are sturdy, good quality for their price point (solid wood!), can be freely rearranged, and are quick to build and dismantle. All of this makes them perfect for a temporary home.
So far, nothing out of the ordinary, I'd say.
There is one additional detail I must add to give you the full picture. I store nothing at all in the few shelves and drawers that came with the apartment—they are all empty, as the friend had learned when he tried to to find a cup in them.
How is this relevant?
Dangers of falling
The question I think I need to ask now is: is falling dangerous?
Of course not. As cliche as it sounds, falling is not dangerous—it is the energy released the moment you hit the ground that will result in a ton of hurt. Imagine you are flying a plane and it suddenly breaks in half. You start falling to your inevitable death, but until you have hit the ground you will stay unharmed; you can call your loved ones to say goodbye, and your employer to inform them you will not be coming to work this Monday. Then mother Earth embraces you and the lights go out.
However, what if you could prolong the fall indefinitely?
If that was the case, I think you could continue you life as if nothing happened. Granted, it would not be the most comfortable life, but it could be made tolerable. Imagine that as you fall you could grab various pieces of airborne floatsam, and slowly build a shell around yourself. A sofa, here. A set of cutlery, there. Somewhere a new frying pan, over there a pair of loudspeakers on a sale. A couple of IVAR shelves as you fall by an IKEA.
What I just described is life in general, or at least how I view it. You keep falling down and accumulating things that make the fall more bearable.
And if you can keep avoiding hitting the ground then you will stay safe.
Temporary life
The fact that my life is—maybe not literally, but also not completely figuratively—built out of IVAR shelves means that I can avoid hitting the ground. If I ever lose the apartment I can tear everything down in matter of hours, rent a van, put my stuff in, and be gone. This is insanely practical... if one assumes that one has to be prepared for such a situation.
The friend with whom I was talking remarked that it is reasonable. I may have to move in the future, and having the ability to do so relatively easily is nice. Good thinking, isn't it?
It is a good idea to have a plan, but is optimising for failure and free fall a reasonable thing to do? I like repeating that «I may be insane, but I am not crazy». Sometimes I am not sure, though.
Psychological reasons and consequences
Let's engage in a bit of pop faux-psychology.
Optimising my life for free fall is a defense mechanism. That much is obvious. I do it because I have experienced instability for most of my life, and I expect it to continue even though I try my damnedest to build a semblance of stability.
This semblance of stability is found in acceptance of the free fall. As I have said earlier in this post, as long as I can keep prolonging the fall and avoid hitting the metaphorical ground I will stay safe. And as long as I do not try to build anythign truly stable I will not have the stability taken away from me.
Similarity to another condition
A similar mechanism is employed by some people who can't maintain a stable relationship. At first they stay distant ie, in free fall; then they start trusting and feeling safe with their partner ie, build some stability; then they realise that the trust can be broken and safety taken away ie, they remember that they can hit the ground; then they—consciously or not—sabotage the relationship to lessen the pain ie, aim for a near miss instead of a full on collision.
Sometimes this is less severe, but no less destructive, and the people just stay distant during the relationship because they are scared of the possibility of hitting the ground.
But I digress.
The point is, if you are always in free fall you can not experience the pleasure of standing on solid ground. You will only have the cold comfort of knowing that you are safe, or rather prepared and ready to avoid the worst. Even that will be paid for by constantly being reminded that you are in fact falling, and if you are not vigilant you will at one point switch from present continuous to simple past. And you can not be constantly vigilant so that switch is an inevitability.
There may be some consolation in the fact that you will be safe as long as you can continue falling, but does it prevent the longing for stability? Is being accustomed to free fall a perfect substiture for being able to stand on your feet?
I do not know. Maybe for some people it is.
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