I was thinking about the paranormal over halloween, as you do. It seems to be getting harder and harder to scare people these days. We pride ourselves on bravery; hear kids competing with one another over how many horror films they've not been scared by; we joke about people who actually believe in silly things such as apparitions and ghosts. We're too smart for that; the age of reason's kicked in and God has, well, kicked it. The gaps are glued over and above all else, logic prevails.
It strikes me as odd then, that as soon as we channel the right mood, atmosphere, lighting, it becomes quite easy to scare ourselves, and each other. No matter how much reason governs our mind during daylight hours; darkness and the unknown will always shut the rational consciousness out and allow that prickling on the back of our necks to take over. The truth is, the more used we get to scientific, logical elucidation, the more we are scared by phenomena we are unable to explain and we recourse to what we had once ruled out as ridiculous. We choose ghosts because, well, they're inescapable. Even if we deny their presence in real life, we constantly encounter them in the novels we read, the films we watch, the plays we attend...whatever the medium.
But here's the rub. We still don't really believe in ghosts; we're just so desperate for an explanation, no matter how absurd; we simply cannot face the void.
x day
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