Flat ontology

Flat ontology :
It is is a model for reality that says that all object, even those that are imagined, have the same degree of being-ness as any other object. No object is more a subject than any other. All subjects are simply objects. The key factor in determining ontology is the ability of an object to affect another. (http://scalar.usc.edu/works/material_philosophy/flat-ontology)

So, a way of thinking about a swirl or swirls is that they are objects, whether they are internal or external. One reason for thinking of them as objects is that the swirl as a complex of negative affects can not be reduced to to a single component. One philosopher, Graham Harman thinks of an object as "anything that is resistant to reduction." So on the understanding that thinking of a swirl as just anxiety or panic is misleading then it might be useful to think of the swirl as an object and moreover as a powerful object. 
I think this is advantageous when we are trying to explore the swirl as a social phenomenon. I wonder whether what gives rise to the swirl, what creates the swirl as an external object are social contexts that bear on agency in particular ways. Someone is unable to get a job because in their region unemployment is high and they lack requisite skills for what is available. They thus get unemployment benefits and at the same time might be characterised as lazy and sponging on the state. So a whole range of negative affects are almost unavoidably in relation to this situation; they can't but they must. If they can't then they are not trying hard enough.