With regard to the 'life or death' vibe, your example in this essay of changing the border in your…

By the time we reach adulthood, we've been trained (under conditions of heavy stress, for most of us) to emotionally invest in money…

With regard to the 'life or death' vibe, your example in this essay of changing the border in your personal atlas is an interesting one.

By the time we reach adulthood, we've been trained (under conditions of heavy stress, for most of us) to emotionally invest in money (which, as RAW notes, we're trained to see as a proxy for the means of survival, and therefore, as survival itself). So, when it comes to money, perhaps a more psychologically accurate comparison is the act of modifying your personal atlas to unify ireland (under either irish or british rule) -- while yourself living in contested territory.