The True Meaning of Security

By: Eve Ensler

 Introduction. Grab the reader's interest. Bring in the general topic for the paper. ...

I am worried about our single-minded focus on security. I see this word, hear this
word, feel this word everywhere. Real security. Security check. Security watch.
Security clearance. Why has all this focus on security made me feel so much more
insecure? What does anyone mean when they speak of security? Why are we
suddenly a nation and a people who strive for security above all else? In fact,
security is essentially elusive, impossible. We all die. We all get sick. We all get old.
People leave us. People surprise us. People change us. Nothing is secure. And this is
the good news. But only if you are not seeking security as the point of your life.

Eve Ensler started the essay with what she feels about the word SECURITY. She used
words associating what security is. Following it are questions on what she feels about security
and how some perceive security.

 Body. Say what the evidence is. Give a concrete example of the evidence. ...

Eve Ensler supported her introduction with several points that would pertain to security.
She started it by saying what will happen if security became the center of our life. She
talks of its disadvantages.
She added:
 But all of this offers only a false sense of security. Real security means
contemplating death, not pretending it doesn’t exist. It means not running
from loss, but feeling it, surrendering to sorrow, entering grief.
 Real security is not knowing something when you don’t know it.
 Real security cannot be bought or arranged or accomplished with bombs. It is
deeper. It is a process. It is the acute awareness that we are all utterly
interdependent and that one action by one being in one town has
consequences everywhere.
 Real security is the ability to tolerate mystery, complexity, ambiguity—indeed
hungering for these things.

 Conclusion. Reconnect to the introduction. Summarize the evidence.

Eve Ensler concluded her essay:

Something happened when I began to travel. I got lost. I became uprooted in time and
space. I became a permanently displaced person. At first it was terrifying, not knowing who
I was or where I was. Then I realized that we are all essentially displaced people, all of us
are refugees, we came from somewhere—and we are hopefully travelling all the time (even
if we never leave our rooms), moving toward a new place. Freedom means I may not be
identified as part of any one group, but that I can visit and find myself in every group.
Freedom does not mean I don’t have values or beliefs. But it does mean I am not hardened
around them. I do not use them as weapons.
Freedom means not being owned, not occupied, not bought.

Freedom means finding the place in me that connects with every person I meet rather than
thinking of myself as different, better or on top.

It means opening my heart to my granddaughter’s little perfect fingers, taking in the

fragility, the tenderness there, the potential loss.

It means feeling what the suicide bombers must have been feeling at the same moment I
am grieving those who died in the bombing.

Believing there is a power determining everything at the same moment I know there is
absolutely no one in charge.

Feeling angry at my teenage son for doing the opposite of what I suggested at the same
moment I marvel at his independence.

Freedom is not knowing where you are but being deeply there.

Not waiting for someone to save or rescue you or heal your terrible past but doing that for
yourself.

Not putting your flag in the ground.

Being willing to get lost.

Living without borders and passports.

Evolving.

Becoming.

Freedom is about being vulnerable to one another, realizing that our ability to connect is
more important than feeling secure, in control and alone.