Existential fear is a lot like food poisoning.

[xiphias]

No, really. It is. They feel mostly the same.

You know that feeling when you've got food poisoning and you are lying in bed, and you start to get nauseous, and you know that this is going to either be miserable for a while, or be miserable for a while and then you'll end up puking, but you're not puking yet, and maybe, if you're VERY VERY STILL, it won't get to the "puking" stage. And your skin breaks out in cold prickly sweat and you feel simultaneously hot and cold.

Yeah.

It's EXACTLY that feeling. The actual stomach part feels SOMEWHAT different, but even that is similar. There are times when I've woken up with food poisoning, and it's taken me a couple minutes to figure out whether I've got food poisoning or existential fear.

Last night, what triggered it was thinking about the Pyramids. And how, when they were built, they were faced in limestone, so that they were gleaming white monuments shining across the sand.

And that the ancient Egyptian culture was a culture. With people in it. Who had entire lives. That an ancient Egyptian peasant who farmed the banks of the Nile had a life. And experiences, every bit as real as mine, in a world every bit as rich as mine.

As did a Roman citizen. Or someone living under the rule of the Golden Horde, or in the Caliphate.

And that all those lives are real, as real as mine.

And that, therefore, mine is only as real as theirs.

And that ALL of these lives happen on a single planet, in an amount of time that is insignificant.

And that, in fact, it's quite possible that the universe itself keeps collapsing and reforming, with different basic universal constants.

That EVERYTHING is insignificant.

That my life is finite and tiny.

And, at night, I feel that.

And it feels like food poisoning.

The thing is -- Lis, for instance, can think all these same thoughts. And they don't bother her. Because, well, why SHOULD they?

I have no explanation as to why I feel the insignificance of our universe, our planet, our time, humanity, all human endeavor, and my own life, so viscerally. And I MEAN "viscerally". "Viscerally" means "relating to the viscera" -- the internal organs in the torso. And that's where I feel it. In my guts. As nausea.
There's no way to think my way out of this. The nausea-inducing insignificance is real. I see things in perspective -- and that IS the perspective.

And so I don't understand why other people DON'T feel this. Why isn't every single human being a quivering mass of horror, quaking at the sheer enormousness of the universe?

. . . but why SHOULD anyone feel this? In realistic, everyday terms, none of this matters. So why can people like Lis focus on the fact that this sheer vastness of everything is basically irrelevant to our lives, and other people, like me, can't?

Comments

[nextian.livejournal.com]

... Last night, I couldn't sleep because of two factors: intestinal distress and existential angst. They felt identical.

Do you have the experience where during the day, you can have these thoughts without being afraid and unhappy? I do -- it can make me shaky but it doesn't make me ill like it does late at night.

One of the ways I combat it is by reminding myself that I am only a collection of atoms and that my sentience is as much of an illusion as my others, and that I'm not really this body any more than I am this table or this bed. And that calms me down, but only by literally taking myself out of myself. Devisceralizing the sensation.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. In times where it's particularly bad, I end up nocturnal -- I stay up all night to avoid sleeping when feeling like this, but I can sleep perfectly happily during the day.

For me, I can sometimes make it JUST a physical feeling. I focus on purely the physical sensation of the nausea, and try to purely experience it, just the physical sensations, and taking all the meaning out of it.

[nextian.livejournal.com]

I'll try that next time. (Probably tonight. *wry*) It's a good thought.

Hold on to that thought...

[wulfthorson.livejournal.com]

...And that, in fact, it's quite possible that the universe itself keeps collapsing and reforming, with different basic universal constants....

Imagine that the nature of the universe is of such that it expands, collapses, reforms, and expands again. Over and over, no beginning, no end, each time different from the last, and yet, after some incomprehensible span of time, a particular universe might be repeated, indeed must be, if the universe is ultimately deterministic. This would mean two things:

Every universe that can be, has been and will be.
All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I feel this exactly as you describe, and I can't understand why everyone doesn't feel that same horror. And sometimes I find it reassuring that everything keeps going, that finite lives are replaced with other finite lives, probably uncountable numbers within this universe and more in every conceivable universe, and that everything is part of that overarching continuity--and I can't understand why everyone doesn't find it reassuring. I am existentially bipolar, I suppose.

[flouritephoenix.livejournal.com]

...at least you're not an ant. Talk about insignificant. You're aware of the universe and can travel the world with relative ease.

Egyptians couldn't travel the world.

Ants are only aware of like what, 7 square feet of world?

You're doing okay.

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

Fascinating, truly.

I can't imagine being affected that way. I don't know why -- your response is certainly an accurate assessment, and reasonable.

If anything, I find comfort in my insignificance. I'm such a complete failure... but really, on the scale of things, it doesn't make much difference, does it?

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

My panic attacks feel EXACTLY like that. Nausea and all.

[phaedra-lari.livejournal.com]

Sometimes for me that same set of existential awareness can feel quite beautiful, or sometimes both beautiful and terrible at the same time. It's hard to describe but I don't feel neutral about my tininess and the vastness... what I feel is best described as awe. But then, I am a pantheist so to me that very hugeness of time, space and experience is itself God.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devils bargain
And weve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

-Joni Mitchel

Ok, we're star dust, that's opened it's eyes and is looking back at the universe. A lot of very clever folks have looked at how this has come about and how small of a chance it is that any of us are even here. Pretty wild.

And if you consider that any point of the universe may be considered the center of the universe, that means that you are literally the center of the universe. For all you know, you don't actually move around but force the rest of the universe to shift around you. Pretty wild.

As for the physical manifestations of such thoughts and why others aren't bothered by these thoughts, um, well, yeah, I had similar panic attacks as a teenager, when I started to wrap my head around just how big the universe was. Would find it difficult to breathe and have heart racing. Very weird. Eventually, I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Pretty wild.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Why isn't every single human being a quivering mass of horror, quaking at the sheer enormousness of the universe?

I see the enormousness of the universe, and find it to be incredibly beautiful.

My perspective is close to gilmoure's. I think it's the most marvelous thing. I consider myself to be only one perspective by which the Universe regards itself, knows itself, sees itself, tastes itself. The ant is another perspective. You are another. The fetus in my womb another. The cat in my house another. The trees in the park outside another...

I don't feel horror when I consider this - I feel connected to everything and have been known to weep from the sheer beauty of it all. It is in those moments that I feel I am aware Divinity in the Universe. It's why I say "Thank Everything" rather than "Thank God".

I don't understand the horror - but I honor it as another way of Everything Knowing Itself.

N.

finite-infinite

[(Anonymous)]

The intersection of the finite and the infinite occurs at our skin, our retinas and our eardrums. It is by definition unmanageable, unpredictable, and except for the immediate vicinity, unchangeable.

Once you accept that it gets fun?

Maybe this is how we perceive G-d?

Duzzy

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

"That an ancient Egyptian peasant who farmed the banks of the Nile had a life. And experiences, every bit as real as mine, in a world every bit as rich as mine.

As did a Roman citizen. Or someone living under the rule of the Golden Horde, or in the Caliphate.

And that all those lives are real, as real as mine.

And that, therefore, mine is only as real as theirs.

And that ALL of these lives happen on a single planet, in an amount of time that is insignificant."

And isn't it amazing that all these people lived and had lives and the world has room for so much variety and keeps on changing and growing and everyone is as significant as an ancient Egyptian peasant, everyone matters. Is the way I see it.

*hugs* for nighttime fears

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

I think most humans have filters that block this type of visceral fear most of the time. They would have to, it's an adaptation that's necessary given the type of consciousness they've evolved if people are to function. So I guess some people lack the filter.

That said, there are a few ways to think about this sort of thing.

One is to remember that just because your life is brief compared to a star's is not to say that yours is any less or more important. Why should length of life be the defining factor to say whether a life is significant or not? So many small things, and small lives, touch many and do much in their time among us.

The other is to consider that what we see and touch here may not be all there is to the infinitude of space and time. Just because the time we spend in this life, in this place, be comparatively short, does not mean that there is nothingness before and after for us. This moment may be only one; just because we cannot know the rest of the continuum at this instant does not negate the possibility of its existence.

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

I know both of those feelings very, very well.

My particular horror is staring into the abyss of death/nothingness. Knowing that the reality we all participate in is a thin construct over the vast indifference and emptiness of the universe.

A couple tricks I've learned to help deal with it:

"Right now, I am here, in this place. Right now, I am safe. It's all right not to know what will happen tomorrow, but right now, I am safe."

Narrow your focus. Visualize a spotlight shining on you (or you and Lis, or you and your family, whatever you need to be comfortable). Only what is in the light matters. The darkness does not. Nothing is real outside the light.

I suspect this is why humankind invented rituals. The idea of being so small, at the mercy of unknowable and uncontrollable forces, really is enough to drive one mad. Ritual not only gives the illusion of control, but it is calming to perform the same actions and say the same words each time.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I believe that I am where I am supposed to be. Whenever a person truly desires something, all the universe conpsires to help that person achieve that dream.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Maybe your bed is wired to the Total Perspective Vortex...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Seriously, that is what it feels like. Thoughts about the TPV were part of that process, as well. I left out that bit, because it was a side issue, but, yes, I was thinking about Zaphod Beeblebrox, and wondering what "fairy cake" was as part of this. (For the record, it means cupcake.)

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Haha yes I was going to say maybe you should check under your bed for that but couldn't remember if it was cake or fairy bread.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I've never felt horror at it, but I do have realizations like this. What it comes down to for me is what everything always comes down to: the only life you can live is the one you have. There were eons of time when I wasn't, and there will be eons of time when I will not be, but I am now.

Ah! I know that one!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I have that. But I find it comforting and useful. All those people, just as real, mostly totally forgotten, me real, will be as forgotten, doesn't really matter that I screwed something up.

There's also Galatia. You heard of Galatia? Well, real place, history, time, people... but the only reason any non-specialists have heard of it is because of St Paul's letter to the Galatians, which is read in Christian churches all over the world. Christians, which is a lot of people, know of Galatia only because one lone religious loon wrote a letter to a tiny religious community there. And that could be us, there might be some guy from Tonga who will write a letter to the Bostonians and in two thousand years that might be every layperson's only easy referent for Boston. But then again, that might be you, every random reference in every letter you write might be the only reason mighty civilizations are remembered. The trick of it is that you don't know whether you're a Galatian or whether you're St. Paul, and you have to live as if you're both at once, as if everything you do has huge historical significance and as if it no more than the dust, simultaneously.

Keeping the needle-poise balance of both at once is how I am happy.

I don't know if this would work for you, but it might be worth trying.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Me three. I mean, this realization used to immerse me in horror, but as I've gone on, I find it really wonderful, actually, the vastness and immensity of existence.

Re: Ah! I know that one!

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

The trick of it is that you don't know whether you're a Galatian or whether you're St. Paul, and you have to live as if you're both at once, as if everything you do has huge historical significance and as if it no more than the dust, simultaneously.

Oh, I am engraving this on my heart.

PS

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

When Asenet had called her husband thrice for the evening meal, she shifted the pot towards the cooler coals so the beans would not scorch, laid a spare cloth over the bread, then went to seek him.

Tjety stood some paces away on the bank above the vegetable patch, face tilted to the evening sky where the last flames of the Sun glowed over the West and Nut's cloak overspread the rest. As Asenet drew near she saw a tear twinkle in the corner of her husband's eye, and silently slipped her arm around his waist, setting her cheek to his shoulder.

Far off, waterfowl called. "Wife," he said at length, his voice hushed, "the world is so great, the sky and the land and the River, great and everlasting when we are but small and brief. I know not how to bear it."

Asenet thought a moment. Then she said, "husband, if you do not come in, I will eat your supper."

Tjety sucked in a breath between his teeth, and laughed, and brought his arm around her shoulders to squeeze her as he turned with her towards the house.

Re: PS

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

+1

[dillonpuff.livejournal.com]

haha ... beat me to posting that ;)

[dillonpuff.livejournal.com]

I've always imagined that folks with some form of religious faith would be a lot less bothered by this.

Think about my atheist perspective - not only is my existence short and insignificant, I don't even think that there's anything beyond my short stay on this planet. It's never really bothered me, though it's been something I've considered fairly often.

I think it would be incredibly awesome if there were a way to experience those other lives - The Inner Light episode of Star Trek comes to mind ( http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/The_Inner_Light_(episode) )

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It is one purpose of religious faith, to be sure.

But it doesn't always help.

I mean, what are your options?

1. You cease to exist when you die; you are insignificant when you live, and then you cease to exist, just like a candle being blown out.

2. When you die, your consciousness is subsumed into some sort of universal consciousness. You STILL cease to exist as an individual being; the same horror applies.

3. When you die, your consciousness continues as an individual. At that point, it either exists forever -- which has a certain horror of its own -- or it eventually ceases to exist at some later point, which is the same situation as 1.

4. When you die, your consciousness transcends this plane and does Something Different -- and in THAT plane, one of the other options holds.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Or, #5, when you die, your consciousness transcends this plane and does Something Different--and in THAT plane, some Entirely Different Option beyond our present ability to imagine holds.

Re: PS

[navrins]

I like that.

*thinks more*

I think what I take from it is: There are phenomena to be awed by... and there is life to be lived. Both are independently important.

I know where to find Iraq and New Zealand and the Straits of Magellan on a map... but I also need to be able to find a pen on my desk.

I don't know; I can't remember ever being seriously bothered by this. Partly this is because I simply don't think of it often - but it is good to do so from time to time and I thank you (both xiphias and browngirl) for causing me to do so today, in very different ways.

[sethg]

I just finished reading 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus and while I want to recommend it to everyone I know, I think you should probably avoid reading this book before bedtime.

[arib.livejournal.com]

bishvili nivra haolam.

Cool and scary at the same time.

Re: PS

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*curtseys* Thank you. :)

Re: PS

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*beeams at you*

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

I experience this fear as being strangled, not as intestinal distress. I feel like it a lot. Just the other day I was telling my wife "humans are so fucked up... what dog lies there, trembling, because it's worried about the Heat Death of the Universe?"

I was just reading a poem and it made me revisit this entry. Maybe you'll find it of some help; it is one perspective on how to survive the contemplation of infinity. From H.D.'s "Helen in Egypt".

There is a spell, for instance,
in every sea-shell:

continuous, the seathrust
is powerless against coral,

bone stone marble
hewn from within by that craftsman,

the shell-fish:
oyster, clam, mollusc

is master-mason planning
the stone marvel:

yet that flabby, amorphous hermit
within, like the planet

senses the finite,
it limits its orbit

of being, its house,
temple, fane, shrine:

it unlocks the portals
at stated intervals:

prompted by hunger,
it opens to the tide-flow:

but infinity? no,
of nothing-too-much:

I sense my own limit,
my shell-jaws snap shut

at invasion of the limitless,
ocean-weight; infinite water

can not crack me, egg in egg-shell;
closed in, complete, immortal

full-circle, I know the pull
of the tide, the lull

as well as the moon;
the octopus-darkness

is powerless against
her cold immortality;

so I in my own way know
that the whale

can not digest me:
be firm in your own small, static, limited

orbit and the shark-jaws
of outer circumstances

will spit you forth:
be indigestible, hard, ungiving

so that, living within,
you beget, self-out-of-self,

selfless,
that pearl-of-great-price.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The word "worry", as in, "be afraid of something that hasn't happened yet" is directly descended from the word "worry", as in "what a terrier does when it grabs a rat by the neck and strangles it to death by shaking."

So the feeling of strangulation is very much something recognized in our very language.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Coming back to this after your later comment. I'm one of those like a few other commenters, who does stop to think about the immensity of space and time but experiences it as awe, not horror. I think part of this is that for some reason I have an unquenchable self-esteem. I mean, I can listen to that bit on Carousel, where Billy says,

"I got it figgered out for myself. What are we? A couple of specks of nothin'. Look up there.

There's a helluva lotta stars in the sky,
And the sky's so big, the sea looks small,
And two little people, you and I,
We don't count at all."

and it's intrinsicially alien to me. I *know* I'm important. So when I think about how much bigger the universe is, how long it's lasted, how short my life is even though I experience it as all of time, and how something like 15 billion other humans have lived, to say nothing of other possible species, and each had the sam perspective of being the only viewpoint they knew ..... I still don't feel insignificant, but I am laid flat in awe and wonder, at the immensity and grandeur of it all. And when I think about how much of it is stunningly beautiful in addition (because when I compare, I find the number of ugly things in the universe is dwarfed by the number and size of beautiful ones - ever seen an ugly galaxy?) well, it's one thing that makes me lean toward thinking maybe there is God.

I actually enjoy that concept enough that I seek it out; that's a major reason I read a lot of YA books, which do address the Big Questions because they're aimed at teenagers. As far as I can tell, most people think at least some about those ideas somewhere while they're growing up and then lay them aside somewhere and get on with life.

Re: PS

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

This is a very good story.

Re: PS

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*blush* Thank you. That means even more coming from a professional wordsmith. :D