The man holding on for dear life to what still remains is often as tethered to tragedy as the man who has everything to lose and is quite blinded from what he cannot see.

The reason being that the former will begin to see that he no longer has breathing room and will focus all his attention on the act of breathing, hoping that the berth will widen. His hope is gigantic and yet, he still finds himself believing that he has some sort of role in that widening.

But his insight may be that the least bit of error on his part could spell yet another setback, in a time where setbacks are not affordable.

The man who has everything to lose spends much of his time building ramparts around him as well, because he lives with the awareness that there is rope to burn, and he acts accordingly.

He changes at his leisure, burning bridges as he sees fit, without any regard for the wider consequences, occasionally to him making needed changes to his life and never truly assesses the damage. This man could later become a man who leads himself blindly into the fold. He may at some point become aware of the wreckage of his past and find the need for a freer life. Or he never changes at all and loses everything.

But so to the man looking for the rescue. But the closer to the bottom one becomes, swiping at all he has like an old man on his way home with his groceries, the more desparate with fear he realizes he now has become. The fear alone promotes failure. Once you've lost everything then the burden of keeping it all together is no longer there. No need to play defense, no need to toe the line. What a treacherous way to live it seems.