Ontological Vertigo
Vertigo is a disoriented sense of groundlessness. It literally refers to the symptom of dizziness or spinning. But the idea of panic when we are unsure of our stability grounded on something concrete metaphorically describes when we are lost. Lost in our humanity, between dogmatic convictions, struggling in cognitive dissonance, or just simply unsure.
The experience of a diver losing the sense of which way to the water’s surface, a cliff climber not being attached to a rope, or an astronaut taking an untethered space walk with only a few small thrusters to return him to his space station is normally reserved for the extreme adrenaline junky thrill seeker. Yet at any moment, we can consider our humanity to create the same destabilizing sense. We humans exist somewhere in vertigo between the animals and the gods: not fully mortal, not fully divine. We have bodies that die, but ideas that do not. We have physical needs, but desires that reach for the infinite. We have minds able to ponder the universe and wonder about its meaning, yet incapable of grasping the absolute. So here we are, left with anxiety in the space between mortal and immortal, with a soul that longs and a body that decays. This anxiety, panic, sense of disorientation, and lack of foundation is what we call ontological vertigo.
Place
We hold onto this idea of hometown and often visit family for holidays, navigating the streets and calling buildings what they were known as thirty years ago as if we had never left. The sense of home is grounding. It implies belonging, intimacy, familiarity, acceptance, attachment, possession. Home is where the heart is, where everyone knows your name, where everything is just as we remember it, where we can be ourself. We want to know where we belong; in comparison to traveling or moving to a new place for a new job, home is centering. Tourists cling to maps and check them often because they lack this feeling of familiarity. We are content when we are in our own bed, in our own hometown.
We ask someone where they are from before we ask any other question, even before we associate them with their name. Now we have an idea of how they think, their experiences growing up, and even some preferences of food and sport that are easily associated with their origin. Many ancient individuals of distinction are known by one name and where they lived. Relationally, we identify someone with their home.
Status
We look to our status to understand and take comfort in our rank and place among others. Individually, we might set goals and believe that we will be happy, just as soon as we reach these goals. But the truth is, more than likely, we use the goals to hide our envy of what someone else has, making our little lives into competitions. Or we use the goals to hide our greediness, with the truth that we will never be satisfied, always chasing the next goal. Consider Lucifer, the most glorious angel. He could have served as chief angel. Instead, his sin was to be unhappy with God’s love of the imperfect, ugly, sinful, stupid human beings. How could God, with his heavenly choirs, admire a creature so full of faults? The humans should have paled in comparison to the angels, yet God loved them despite and even because of their imperfections and free will.
Like Lucifer, we use our titles, positions, and associations to measure our worth against our own values and the accomplishments of others. We use these shortcuts to communicate to ourself and to others that our existence has value, instead of critically examining our way of thinking and testing our beliefs. If we stop to critically examine who we are occasionally, we risk discovering that we could be Nobody, with no real significance, existing on a floating blue globe that disappears as a speck of dust into the vastness of the universe.
Identity
Our name is who we are, how we build our identity, how we define ourself, and relationally how we associate with others. We consider it to carry the reputation we have built around it. The greatest insult we can receive when we assume we have a connection with someone is for them to call us by the wrong name or forget it completely. Parents carefully select what sequence of letters will follow their new child for the rest of their life, and individuals file lots of paperwork if a name no longer fits. Beyond legal names, there is an association in social groups of a relational nature: sibling, spouse, colleague, neighbor, the friend who is the loudest drunk. It is difficult to build or destroy these identities, and easy to be called to someone’s attention even in a large crowd when we hear someone call us. Our name is the sweetest sound we can hear because we associate our name with our self. If we know who we are, we can be content. If our identity, our associations, or the basic beliefs with which we identify with come into question, we have a crisis of self.
Vocation
The etymology of vocation is from the words meaning a spiritual calling. Children are often asked what they want to be when they grow up, the implication being that they can pick anything and significantly affect the world. It is not enough that someone might find a position that will regularly and comfortably cover the expenses of the cost of living, we want not a career but a higher calling. We are raised with galactic rebels, witches who attend a magical school, and superheroes to set the standard.
Many of us comfortably fool ourself that we can accept that perhaps life has no meaning, yet we think we can make a difference on our little blue planet by recycling, being a kind neighbor, or volunteering our time to a non-profit organization. Many do not realize that the sense of fulfillment, the satisfaction of being a good person, the dopamine hit from believing we contributed to making the world a better place is the greatest result of our supposed selflessness. But take away an individual’s vocation and life seems aimless, directionless, as if there is no reason to fight. We see this easily in the quickly declining health of an elderly person after their spouse dies or after they retire from a fast paced occupation. Without their vocation, they are aimless.
Potency
We humans are the creatures unique among creation, with the ability to publish ideas that are read for centuries, to start revolutions, and to change the course of lives just by signing a piece of paper. To exercise our own power, from daily tasks to earning degrees, we can easily experience ontological vertigo. We have children, but panic when we start to unfold what this new identity parent demands of us. We want to save the world, but the goal is so vast, we are overwhelmed by planning the first step. Perhaps our potency is where the connection to the gods is most visible: the gift of fire from Prometheus can sometimes look like more of a curse than a blessing. The bears lack anxiety about leaving a legacy. The birds do not fear death. The fish participate in the cycle of life without considering the meaning of their existence. Yet here we are, sometimes struggling to get out of bed in the morning and face our inbox. This anxiety is made worse when we hear of the accomplishments of others—we somehow manage to believe we might be the only one who struggles with vertigo of identity or meaning, when others are able to achieve greatness. But on self reflection, many of us create our own toughest ideal for comparison: our own goals and objectives, our potential. We fear reaching the end of our own meager existence with the instinct to shout “I coulda been a contender! I coulda been Somebody!” to the void.
Meaning
Since before history and literature have recorded it, humans have been seeking meaning. There is a mythology to explain the seasons, the existence of evil, and the origin of echoes. The scientific revolution has not changed that we still have no idea what happens after death, what is the nature of the soul, or why, when endless other possibilities did not materialize while a multitude of necessary choices led to this reality, we exist. Yet we yearn for answers. We construct doxa, treating probability as certainty, and we make dogma of it. Or rather more commonly, we look for established dogmas and adopt them for an easy shortcut. The hypothesis that life is meaningless, that we wake up to do our chores and fulfill our responsibilities just to do it again and again until we die, is so painful that we avoid considering it. Everyone posits at some point the philosophical question: what is the meaning of life? The question is so essential to how we live our lives that when someone’s beliefs evolve, they experience disorientation in their ethics, their relationships, and their way of living, both in daily and longterm objectives.
Essence
One or a few of the elements described above may be combined to be the essence an individual considers grounding for them. In guilt societies, individuals may think of their contribution to society as their essence; in shame societies, perhaps it is more their role within the family, home, and community. Or someone might be taken up with a hobby here, a relationship there, and think of these pursuits as their essence. They may even dress and adopt mannerisms to fit the role of mother, rebel, artist, or geek.
The essence of rosemary is easy to distinguish, whether tasting a sprig that garnishes a cocktail or distinguishing the scent perfuming a field. But the essence of a human being, that is a much more complicated task. We rather like the challenge, as evidenced by the popularity of personality quizzes or labels that conclude we are a nightowl, a Kramer, an INTJ, or a Ravenclaw. We want to define, to set boundaries, to describe what is and what is not. Think of the crisis someone has when they discover one of their labels has changed: there can be confusion, revolution, or joy. Very different from the uncertainty of being a teenager, when life is a world of possibility: the choices are enough to invoke decision fatigue often. It is nice to know who we are. It is not knowing that gives us anxiety.
The Cure
Why do we try so hard to stay grounded? We are human beings—depending on the mythology, the pinnacle of creation or an afterthought that was not supposed to exist. It is when we embrace this ontological vertigo, letting go of the sure footing we have in what we think we know, that we exist in freedom and learn that our limitations are our own creation. The abyss is endless, and that is joyful news. This is the work of philosophy: not to cure this vertigo, but to learn to love the abyss.
Further reading:
Cook, K. E. & Hamm, E. (2023). Ontological Vertigo: A Natural State. Interdisciplinary Research in Counseling, Ethics and Philosophy. 3(7), 28-40. https://www.ircep.eu/index.php/home/article/view/46
You have very accurate and vivid observations and sketches. Indeed, although we clearly feel our existence, we are always out of place. We are always on the go, always on the move. Remember Nietzsche and his image of a tightrope walker over an abyss? On the one hand, balancing on a rope is the most unstable position, but on the other hand, each step of the master is the best and most right. Vertigo is the agonizing expectation of action (or success or failure), but when I focus on the action itself, I find myself again.
Crisis.. rumbles down inert security structures rooted into the gravitational abyss of past, traditions, cultures to pave the way for something beyond the cage or radar of the human mind... NATURE IS EVER CREATIVE IN A NOVEL WAY... and ONTOLOGICAL VERTIGO... is seemingly a tool in the hands of NATURE...