Precariousness

Is the world stable?

In October of 2016, I fell off my roof while cleaning the gutters.  What you realize when you are falling, is that the air is painless.  When you land, you feel nothing for a moment as your vision goes black.  And then the pain and trauma sets in.  I was lucky, I only broke my arm.  If you ever want to know what it's like to be a baker with a cast up to the shoulder, just ask me.  It was one of those situations where you learn to trust and train the people around you because injury has made you virtually useless.

I go back to the roof in my mind often, the moment of distraction, the phone ringing, the car passing by and blinding me momentarily with the sun reflected off the windshield, the thoughts of my girlfriend who I was trying to see later in the day, the podcast I was listening to from my phone, and finally the ladder slipping out from under my feet as I clutched, flailing, at the metal gutter.  The air was painless, and in a moment I went from my usual self to a world of pain as I went into shock and ceased to be able to use my limbs and struggled to breathe.  I was all alone, and though my neighbor saw me fall, no one rushed to my aid.  Nothing prepares you for shock.  I faced it alone, and only through the adrenaline rush and force of will drove myself to the ER, all the while trying not to pass out.

The world is in flux.  The world, like our lives, is more precarious than we think.  One moment you are doing the gutters, and the next you are asking a nurse whether your fist will ever be able to unclench.  Who will be there when you fall?  Is the world robust enough to heal from a shock?  What systems, what safeguards are adequate to traumas of our times?