quote | seeking to fill ourselves

Upon the discovery of our precariousness and insecure contingency, we seek to ground ourselves, to finish and fill ourselves, by running away from the fragility of our personhood.... If we consume, collect, or produce enough, we seem to think we could eliminate the risks of being human, of trust, of intimacy. But we find instead the emptiness of a closed, monadic world that turns upon itself in violence. Finally, we seek escape, refusing to commit ourselves, in the face of our own frightening unfinishedness. At times, slavery seems less terrible, and certainly more safe, than freedom.
John Francis Kavanaugh