In information security, we tell ourselves control is everything. We build frameworks, write policies, automate scans, and obtain certifications, all in service of reducing uncertainty. The assumption is that if we can standardize enough, checklist enough, observe enough, we can make risk manageable. Containable. Controllable.

But security doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes, the most meaningful insights emerge from curiosity, improvisation, even accidents. A vulnerability found by intuition, a misconfiguration noticed in a moment of idle exploration, a pattern that just felt wrong. These moments don’t arrive on schedule, and they can’t be forced. They resist instrumentation.

Sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls this “uncontrollability”, and argues that it isn’t a flaw to be fixed, but a vital feature of how we relate meaningfully to the world.

Hartmut Rosa‘s essay, The Uncontrollability of the World (originally Unverfügbarkeit, 2018) is a short but powerful philosophical reflection on modern society’s obsession with control.

Rosa starts by stating that modern humans relate to this world through a set of “points of aggression”, and that modern societies who wish to exist and prosper need to establish a state of dynamic stabilization. That is, in order to stay stable, they need to change.

“A modern society is one that can stabilize itself only dynamically, in other words one that requires constant economic growth, technological acceleration, and culture innovation in order to maintain its institutional status quo.” – Hartmut Rosa, The Uncontrollability of the World

Rosa argues that modernity is driven by a deep desire to make the world controllable across four dimensions – to make the world visible, reachable / accessible, manageable, and useful. This impulse is behind scientific progress, bureaucratic systems, technological development, and even personal self-optimization.

The flipside and reality, however, is unverfügbarkeit, or uncontrollability – the central concept in this Rosa essay. It refers to the idea that the most meaningful aspects of life, such as love, inspiration, nature, art, and even democratic participation, cannot be forced or controlled. They resist instrumentalization, they cannot be predicted, and they cannot be engineered.

Rosa uses snow as an example of uncontrollability:

“Falling snow is perhaps the purest manifestation of uncontrollability. We cannot manufacture it, force it, or even confidently predict it, at least not very far in advance. What is more, we cannot get hold of it or make it our own. Take some in your hand, it slips through your fingers. Bring it into the house, it melts away. Pack it away in the freezer, it stops being snow and becomes ice.”

In contrast to viewing human interaction as a “point of aggression”, Rosa proposes viewing it as a “point of resonance” – a major theme in Rosa’s broader work. He suggests that a fulfilling life is one in which we have resonant relationships with people, things, and the world itself. Resonance involves openness, responsiveness, and transformation. But when we try to control everything, resonance is lost.

Rosa proposes five theses regarding controllability. Quoting them verbatim:

• The inherent uncontrollability of resonance and the fundamental controllability of things do not constitute a contradiction per se.

• Things we can completely cont