The Ground Beneath Us

I still remember watching The Abyss (1989, James Cameron) as a kid. I’ve forgotten most of the plot, but one thing stayed with me: the word abyss—and the eerie feeling it evokes. Like many films set in strange or alien worlds, it seemed to be about monsters lurking in the deep.

But looking back, I wonder if the real fear wasn’t creatures in the deep, but the deep itself—a space without reference or boundaries. And maybe what matters isn’t defeating the monsters, but recognizing we’re not so different from them—fellow travelers in the same mysterious ocean.

The first time I dove beneath the surface, the world changed. Sunlight fractured above me, but below, I was in a timeless realm. Seemingly empty, yet dense. Like swimming through memory itself.

The ocean made me aware of the ground beneath me. Every kick of the fin is a reminder: you’re suspended. Not falling, but floating. Not being, but becoming. Maybe that’s what the abyss really is: a place where the ground beneath us dissolves, along with any sense of up or down, and exposes the illusion of control.

That same sensation of groundlessness—that feeling of floating without solid reference points—follows us into the deeper waters of life and thought.

The Vertigo of Freedom

We live in an age obsessed with freedom—of identity, of expression, of choice. And yet, freedom often feels terrifying. Everything’s up for debate, but the ground beneath the debate feels unstable. The old certainties that once anchored us have loosened their grip. Say the wrong thing, misread a gesture, and suddenly you're plummeting through social space, untethered.

In this context, freedom becomes a double-edged sword. To be truly free means shouldering the responsibility of meaning-making in a universe that doesn’t hand it out. And when old forms of guidance—religion, tradition, community—lose their grip, we’re left spinning.

Reason, for all its elegance, often fails us here. Stripped of faith, community, or shared stories, rational thinking can turn cold and cruel. Pure logic may conclude that a life of suffering, in a meaningless world, isn’t worth continuing. It's a terrifying place to land, but it's where many people find themselves today.

Strategies for Surviving the Depths

Faced with this groundlessness, I see four common patterns in how we respond—ways that history, culture, and our own experience reveal:

1. The Great Distraction

Modern life offers endless ways to look away. We stay busy. We chase achievements, entertainment, relationships, and retirement plans. Even happiness can become a strategy of avoidance. The intensity of our pursuits often reveals the emptiness we’re trying to outrun.

2. The Illusion of Control

Some seek refuge in knowledge—especially the kind that promises certainty. Scientism, unlike science, insists we can explain everything. But as physicist Sabine Hossenfelder notes, even our best models often rest on unknowns. Yet we cling to simple explanations, not as truth, but as comfort.

3. Nietzsche’s Defiance

Nietzsche saw that the “death of God” left us untethered. His response wasn’t despair, but defiance: if no meaning is given, we must create it ourselves. His "will to power" isn't mere assertion or dominance—it's a call to continual self-overcoming, to becoming who we are through creative transformation. The burden rests on each individual to author their own values.

4. Kierkegaard’s Leap

For Kierkegaard, the abyss was not something to master, but to meet with faith. Kierkegaard urges us to move beyond logic into trust. The "leap of faith" he describes is not rational, but radical. The leap is a surrender rather than a solution. It’s not certainty that gives faith its power, but its willingness to act without it.

Each of these confronts the abyss, but leaves us fundamentally alone.

Becoming the Ground

Eastern thought, particularly through Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani, suggests another approach. What if the ground doesn’t fall away from us, but into us?

Drawing on both Zen and existentialism, Nishitani writes: “The ground beneath us opens up when we become a question unto ourselves.” That rupture isn’t a crisis—it reveals a truth to live with. The moment we let go of the illusion of a solid, separate self, we realize we are part of something larger.

This looks different in practice than our usual way of moving through the world. Instead of defending our opinions as extensions of ourselves, we might hold them lightly. Instead of needing to be right to feel secure, we might find security in not-knowing. Instead of treating disagreement as attack, we might see it as an invitation to deeper understanding.

We don’t disappear into the void when we loosen our grip. We discover we were never separate. The same groundlessness that terrifies us also connects us. When the fortress of the self softens, what remains isn’t emptiness, but relationship. We’re no longer lost in nothingness, but found in everything.

This isn’t mysticism—it’s a different way of being. When we stop guarding our individual identities and start seeing life as something we participate in rather than own, fear starts to loosen its grip.

Living the Questions

Maybe we’re not meant to solve the big questions. Maybe they’re there to be lived, together, like swimmers suspended in the same vast ocean.

If the self isn’t an island, then we don’t have to defend it so fiercely. We don’t need to win every argument. We don’t need to be right to belong.

We don’t need to hold our ground—because we are the ground.

Maybe happiness isn’t about power or perfection. Maybe it’s about remembering that we’re suspended in shared waters.

The abyss and the ground aren’t opposites. They’re two faces of the same mystery—the freedom that lives between being and becoming.

That childhood feeling from The Abyss wasn’t fear of the deep. It was a faint recognition that the depths are where we’ve always been. And now I know, I'm not alone.

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What does it feel like when the ground gives way beneath you—whether in water, in conversation, or in those moments when life's certainties dissolve?

How do you navigate the space between floating and drowning, between the terror and wonder of being suspended in depths larger than yourself?