Into the void...
“That night she sat for hours, too numb even to drink, teaching herself to breathe in a vacuum. For this, oh God, was the void. There was nobody who could help her. Nobody in the world. They were all on something, mad, possible enemies, dead.”
-Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
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2009-07-01
6:56 p.m.
Jeff Kass recounts a conversation with Sue Klebold, in which he basically told her he knows she was the case history in a psychological study about a fear of death. I have some issues with the way he brought it up to her and the fact that he printed her reaction (hanging up on him) in the book as though it were absolute proof that he was right, but I was interested to hear about this fear of death issue nevertheless. Of particular note was even later when he says the fear of death is often at the root of a lot of other phobias, not least of which was a fear of insects.
Entomophobia.
So that’s the word for it. That’s the word I should have learned eons ago. That’s the term for what happens to me when I see anything even remotely resembling an insect. I’m even terrified of animated insects, ridiculous as I know it is. But I can understand there being a correlation between fear of death and fear of insects, seeing as how I seem to experience both. I wanted to know how true this correlation was. I googled “fear of insects” to learn the term “entomophobia” and read the Wikipedia entry. I googled “fear of death” and found a billion self-help sites proclaiming the Bible to be the answer.
Perhaps.
But believe out of fear? Not me. That makes about as much sense as the absurd celebrity worship I see everywhere. To me, people are fascinated by celebrities out of a fear of loneliness. Seeing familiar faces triggers some kind of an emotional reaction that makes people feel like they have friends. They feel good, so they stick with the celebrity worship. Fine. Good for them.
Doesn’t suit me.
What good would it do for me to feel some false sense of familiarity with celebrities? Would it actually mean I have more friends? No. It might mean I have a general sense of feeling less lonely, but I see a huge distinction. Some might think it’s an unimportant distinction that shouldn’t matter if it makes you feel good. But how can I realistically make a decision to do something I recognize as being entirely hollow? It’s a choice I won’t make. I recognize that there may be some value to it for some people.
Sure, I get it. But I won’t surrender to it.
In a way, it’s the same for me with children. I understand people wanting to have children. Carry on the family name. Leave something of yourself behind. Regain your youth by watching them live theirs. Mold them into the people you would like them to become. Why not?
Go ahead.
I’ll stay at home with my husband, drinking wine and watching TV practically every night until I die, because the only thing that has any meaning at all for me is spending time in a room with him. Sure, I love him. I appreciate being with him. But it doesn’t change the fact that life, for me, for us, is utterly meaningless. Have children? No. To me, that means willingly subjecting someone to the same pitiful meaningless oblivion I fight against every day.
31 years, and I haven’t found meaning.
I don’t think there is meaning. There’s monotony. There’s tedium. There’s death and insects. I think about what it is that brings me satisfaction, and I realize there is no satisfaction. There’s dealing. There’s escaping from the tedium for a brief moment or two. There’s alcohol and sitcoms and slot machines and action flicks. These are the things I like because they take me out of reality for a moment. They let me stop thinking. I sit back, zone out, reflect on the void -- enjoyable insofar as it isn’t utterly devastating.
