Boundary situations are not something we encounter from time to time. Although, to be honest, I used to think so – a boundary situation as an event, not as a given. But, Karl Jaspers asserts, a person is always immersed in them.

... there are situations that remain unchanged in their essence, even if their momentary manifestation changes and their all-encompassing power is hidden from view: I must die, must suffer, must struggle, I depend on chance, I inevitably discover my own guilt.

The other thing is that a person makes separate efforts to avoid discovering this – tragic – state of affairs, by engaging in worries, being busy, etc. Perhaps that is why boredom is so hard for us, because boredom threatens to reveal the abyss of our being, the relentless collapse of our world. Hence so many tasks, so many tasks, and even more distractions, entertainments, and other anesthetics…

We, as humans, live according to a very tragic scenario, and each constantly develops strategies that spare them from thinking about it. A person creates problems and difficulties for themselves, thus keeping busy. I developed many avoidance strategies: I work a lot, compose music, play basketball, and go to the movies, I have a wife and children who need my attention. However, none of this allows me to forget […]. My mechanisms of denial are not particularly good, and so I spend most of my time in suffering. Someone else might say: “This is madness, we all know the same truth, why suffer? Let’s rejoice!” 

For me, it’s difficult. Woody Allen

So, it turns out that a person is such a boundary being by nature? And then what – constantly finding oneself in collapse and terrifying uncertainty? 

It sounds tough and demanding, yet, strangely enough, hopeful – as if this perspective could become a guide for cultivating humanity within oneself.

It is crucial for a person how they experience this situation of collapse: whether it remains hidden from them and only captures them at the very end, or whether they can see it unveiled as a constant boundary of their existence at any given moment; whether they cling to illusory solutions and reassurances, or keep honest silence in the face of what cannot be explained. How they experience their collapse lies at the foundation of who a person becomes.