more Buber

To leave behind the world of experience is terrifying because the world of experience is predictable, understandable, and easily manipulated, while the world of encounter is none of these things. In order to ready oneself for encounter, then, one must also shed one’s drive toward self-affirmation, the drive toward self-protection and the need to feel that you are in complete control of yourself and the world around you.

SparkNotes. I and Thou