When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
John Keats
I don’t like to think about the fact that our days are numbered. It is on my mind rather a lot: I have wasted so much time already.
There is a hideous irony in the fact that I have spent the past fifteen years tempting the very thing that terrifies me more than anything else.
I think that they’re connected somehow – this paralysing fear of death and the intensity of my eating disorder. I think they’re linked to control somewhere and, maybe, to feeling and thinking things a little too much.
An eating disorder may look like a drawn out suicide attempt but an early death was the last thing on my mind: it was about managing human mortality, not egging it on.
It was a fundamentally flawed attempt to manage that terrifying sense of isolation and uncertainty which comes when you start to become a conscious being –
I’m not sure that I made the transition that well.
I think I might have got stuck in the existential angst bit for a while and buried my head in the sand. I seemed to sense. pretty early on, that this is it – for the moment. That we don’t know what comes next. And that it might well be nothing -
Departed — to the Judgment —
A Mighty Afternoon —
Great Clouds — like Ushers — leaning —
Creation — looking on —
The Flesh — Surrendered — Cancelled —
The Bodiless — begun —
Two Worlds — like Audiences — disperse —
And leave the Soul — alone —
Emily Dickinson
You can either shrug your shoulders and make the most of it; or, you can get stuck chasing a question that you’ll never answer, solving a problem that can’t be fixed.
Me and my eating disorder chose the latter.
If the loss and the pain of leaving things behind or being left behind is too much to bear – well, then I’ll firm up the defences now; I’ll lessen the impact by building an emotional cocoon.
I might not be able to control death, but I’ll make sure that every little aspect of my life is under the thumb. If the uncertainty nags and gnaws and keeps me awake at night – I’ll think about something – anything – else.
This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond —
Invisible, as Music —
But positive, as Sound —
It beckons, and it baffles —
Philosophy — don’t know —
And through a Riddle, at the last —
Sagacity, must go —
To guess it, puzzles scholars —
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown —
Faith slips — and laughs, and rallies —
Blushes, if any see —
Plucks at a twig of Evidence —
And asks a Vane, the way —
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit —
Strong Hallelujahs roll —
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul —
Emily Dickinson
Narcotics work, for a little while; but, when our days are numbered, it’s not the best use of time.
Self protection’s all well and good; but, as Tennyson pointed out, “it’s better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all” - and I think it might be time that I started exploring that side of the human experience as well.
It seems that people have been wondering what comes next for quite some time already.
Tags: death, poetry and prose, the human head
