Member-only story
Last night I startled out of semi-sleep with the same realization that I’ve been having since I was five years old: that I am mortal. I have these occasional moments, these consciousness-gashes, when I perceive and feel what nothingness must be like (nothing): and it is not merely frightening, but absolutely disruptive. Ordinary fears fall away like snake scales, little problems dissolve in the pool of The One Big Problem: that my brain will rot, my atoms disperse, my being cease to exist, but more importantly, the thread of memory that is me, that bundles me together, will fall apart, rendering ME like I was NEVER THERE. It’s incredible that a creature can think this, that the hive of neurons and synapses can render themselves, through their own activities, utterly aware of the cosmological mootness of their own activities. The only truly unique aspect of the human — as opposed to the animal — are these moments of existential panic (rendered best in literature by Tolstoy and Shakespeare I think). From a scientific perspective, it’s fascinating; from a poetic perspective, uncanny; from a philosophical perspective, important.
