"Staring into the abyss" is only half the challenge; the other half is knowing what (values) you can hold on to while the abyss stares back at you.
The latter is what stops people from looking too closely, or asking hard questions -- because they fear that they might not have a strong enough framework in which to answer them. And so they look only as close as they can handle while they slowly work up the strength and the courage.
Another kind of person happens to be very comfortable staring into the abyss, interpreting with Procrustean simplifications, and reacting to what they see -- without necessarily the strong values in place to ground them; they are a loose canon, especially if they are a high-agency person biased for action.
When the gentle equilibrium has been upset by an unexpected outcome, the high-agency person has the fortitude to iterate the cycle of staring into the abyss (still a loose cannon, if they’re not well grounded).
However, the median person might not -- and can end up doing an incredible amount of collateral damage (to their own lives, and the lives of people around them) if they do this with insufficient skills or commitment. I wouldn't be surprised if a fear of the abyss is an evolutionary/cultural survival mechanism to protect them from themselves.
Very few people have the nous to carry out the whole iterated process well.
The latter is what stops people from looking too closely, or asking hard questions -- because they fear that they might not have a strong enough framework in which to answer them. And so they look only as close as they can handle while they slowly work up the strength and the courage.
Another kind of person happens to be very comfortable staring into the abyss, interpreting with Procrustean simplifications, and reacting to what they see -- without necessarily the strong values in place to ground them; they are a loose canon, especially if they are a high-agency person biased for action.
When the gentle equilibrium has been upset by an unexpected outcome, the high-agency person has the fortitude to iterate the cycle of staring into the abyss (still a loose cannon, if they’re not well grounded).
However, the median person might not -- and can end up doing an incredible amount of collateral damage (to their own lives, and the lives of people around them) if they do this with insufficient skills or commitment. I wouldn't be surprised if a fear of the abyss is an evolutionary/cultural survival mechanism to protect them from themselves.
Very few people have the nous to carry out the whole iterated process well.