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An Existential Excavation
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There are some things we simply cannot know.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to get answers. We are meaning-making beings: part of that drive entails understanding the world in which we find ourselves. 

This is a good thing. Without it, we would never have discovered practical facts like the laws of motion or the existence of microscopic organisms. These discoveries, fueled by What and Why have led to massive decreases in human suffering in the last few hundred years.

What and Why are the basis of scientific inquiry.

But some riddles are not solvable. We may be able to answer some of these questions in the future as our technology evolves to keep pace with our curiosity, but I suspect some things are not meant to be known, regardless of our technological sophistication.

These topics are, of course, the same ones people have pondered since there were people; they are the basic questions of existentialism.

This is where What and Why can become dangerous: Why are we here? What happened before we were born? What happens after we die? What are we supposed to do while we are here? What is the meaning of our being here, and where, exactly, is “here?”

There is a seemingly impenetrable veil between what we want to know—the deepest, most foundational questions of our very existence—and what we are allowed to reason out with any certainty, no less observe.

The truth is that most people don’t seriously think about these questions. I think this is the correct and intended default state. “I wonder what happens after we die?“ “Well, nobody knows for sure, but there are a bunch of theories…“ This is frequently the end of discussion and the end of inquiry.

I suspect that is how it should be, for two reasons. First, we can’t know. To spend vast amounts of time trying to answer the unanswerable seems a waste of the brief and precious time we have in this plane of consciousness. Second, we’re not really equipped to ask the question.

The psychological literature contains relatively little discussion of these experiences as a distinct phenomenon.

There is a replicable, easily recognizable chain of events that occurs when our limited human mind nears the existential event horizon and gazes at the abyss.

Over time, I have come to call them “existential panic attacks.”

These events are differentiated from more common panic or anxiety attacks by their trigger. In an existential panic attack, the psychological and physiological signs and symptoms (fast heart rate, a feeling that you can’t “catch your breath,” dizziness, numbness and tingling of the hands and arms, excessive sweating, the sense that something is coming to “get you”) are triggered by a sudden, personal realization of an existential truth.

It is as though the safe psychological distance created by observing reality breaks down, and momentarily allows its direct experience.

One client described it as, “The difference between knowing that everyone eventually dies, and realizing that ‘I’m actually going to die, and there is nothing I can do about it.’”

These symptoms are sudden and profound, like a regular panic attack, but can recur with regularity after the initial event for months or years, like anxiety attacks.

Existential panic attacks are not “worry” or “stress” about a negative future event; they are an immediate reaction to the reality of your existence.

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Our world is, in most considerations, an abstraction. Our senses—with the arguable exception of olfaction, our sense of smell—are mediated through vast, dense neural networks before they come to our conscious experience. At which point they are subject to psychological interpretations which themselves are influenced by a number of shifting and sometimes momentary factors: our emotional state, our recent memories, our blood sugar levels; on and on.

Yet some human minds seem to be able to see beyond our safely moderated world to catch a fleeting, immediate glimpse of our unfiltered foundational reality.

Every so often, a person survives this encounter intact—changed, but not irreversibly damaged. This is the nature of true enlightenment, and it has given rise to world- and culture-changing thought and practice. Witness the works of Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, or the actionable wisdom of Gautama Buddha.

While a successful encounter with ultimate reality has produced the timeless wisdom of sages and mystics, one of my clients described the experience in less lofty terms:

“Enlightenment is a bitch.”

More often, unfortunately, seeing what cannot be understood results in catastrophe. This condition is frequently seen in psychotropically-altered states, but exogenous chemicals are not necessarily a prerequisite.

Friedrich Nietzsche lived in this liminal state, grounded in a relatively safe, moderated construction of the physical world, but was constantly leaning forward on the tips of his toes, trying to catch a glimpse of what lies beyond the veil.

One January day in 1889, so the Turin Horse story goes, Nietzsche saw a man beating a horse, lost his mind and never recovered. His last intelligible words were reportedly, “Mutter…Ich bin dumm…” This statement is widely transliterated to mean “Mother, I am dumb.” But I think maybe he was trying to convey the sensation that followed an explosive exposure to the nature of reality itself, and his intended implication was, “Mother…I know nothing.”

For a firsthand account of the effects of a glimpse into the forbidden What and Why, you need look no further than Robert Pirsig‘s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This particular instance finds Pirsig—as Phaedrus—lying on the floor in the fetal position, the victim of severe psychological injury. His trigger? Trying to understand the true, unfiltered nature of Quality.

For most who stray too close to incomprehensible reality, the Existential panic attack is an intense and unmissable stop sign, a safety precaution that reaches out with a giant hand, grabs your physiology, and says: “Here there be dragons.”

Seen in this way, the existential panic attack—while terrifying—is a bit of tough love; a protective force that says, “Leave it alone.”

It seems that the topic does not differentially predict the outcome: the personal reality of life and death, the nature of infinity, of quality, of truth. Triggers come in all realms of inquiry.

Some of those topics are inescapable. At some point, every person leaves the age of innocence and confronts death, usually of a parent or grandparent. Most of those individuals are then assuaged by some form of religious thought that includes a creation myth and a prescribed route to salvation, intended to provide a hopeful answer to “Where did I come from?” and “What happens after death?”

This is not to say that religion has no basis in reality or that it was invented purely as an anxiolytic philosophy. That, again, is something the truth of which can not be fully known. But, for believers, religion does have the intended effect of providing answers, given by mysterious authorities whose elevated status allows them to know things that we mortals cannot.

The people who still try to know—as opposed to hope or believe—seem to fall into two camps:

The first (and more common) consists of those who safely navigate the borderland of what can be known by keeping their deliberations safely encased as a thought exercise. For these individuals, reality is a philosophical discourse, kept at arm’s length from personal impact, psychologically and emotionally. Psychologically dangerous topics can then be safely discussed as though they were conditions that might affect somebody else.

The second camp—the minority—experiences What and Why immediately and in the first person. This group crosses the line from philosophical discussion to lived experience. The existential panic attack is frequently triggered. And for some people, sadly, there is no “off” switch. They’re not trying to probe deeply into forbidden lands, their mind simply goes there. If they’re lucky the existential panic attack stops them before they get too close to the edge.

This, I believe, is not psychopathology. It is not a mental illness to possess a mind that can so easily pierce the darkness that keeps most others safe.

How do you proceed if you are one of those people?

First, stop the panic attack. I, and others, have written about effective ways to halt the physiologic response that comes with an existential panic attack.

Second, as one would do when standing precariously close to the edge of any great precipice, carefully step back.

Philosophically and psychologically, stepping back involves an understanding—beyond that, an acceptance—of the fact that there are things we just can’t know. 

As astrophysicist Michelle Thaller recently said, “I think people don’t understand there are things that are outside, at least for now, the realm of measurement. And that doesn’t mean they’re not real.”

In the end, no matter how profound the subject material and potentially devastating the consequences, the answer is the same. Focus on your world and your surroundings.

Get outside and touch some grass—or sand, or snow, or whatever you have.

Think about how astronomically unlikely it is that you are here at all, and give thanks.

We do not need to solve existence in order to participate in it.

Read my recent interview with Dr. Mehmet Yildiz here.

My novel, The Calling is available now in print and as an eBook.


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To learn more about how to use these concepts or to inquire about working with me, go to the Jeff W Welsh website, subscribe to my Substack or Medium accounts or the Hardcore Happiness blog page, and follow my Instagram account for regular insights.




- JWW