Member-only story
The Potential of Crisis
“Now that I have seen your face,”, he says to Death, “what can I enjoy?”
Nachiteka, Katha Upanishad
An unexpected crisis can take many shapes or forms.
The world as we thought we knew it is changed, is put into question. Our model of the world and what we thought the world owed to us is put into question. Our identities, our place in society, the order on which our societies rest: all is put into question. A crisis dislodges our expectations, can present a black swan, an event unexpected unexpectedness, to us. It can confront us with the fragility of a world whose stability we take for granted, the fragility of our freedom, of our social order, of our health: and all we can do is watch our sense of comfort and entitlement coming to pieces.
This can be frightening, anxiety-inducing, panic-inducing.
But there can be a bright side: times of crisis have transformative potential. A crisis forces us to change ourselves, to step out of the trod and comfort of daily existence: to think deeply about what all of this means, what the world means, what we value, who we are - and what we want to be.
