existentialism and Horror (Excerpt)

Have you ever walked through the produce aisle only to be violently accosted by an inner monologue concerning your own mortality?

            See. You get it.

            I suppose as a horror author, an aspect of this makes sense. My primary modality of writing tends to concern life beyond death, the supernatural, necromancy and all the accompanying nonsense. A nonzero part of my brain is, in some way or another, always preoccupied with thoughts of dying. Typically, it tends to revolve around the unfortunate ways my blessed main characters will meet a tragic demise. Occasionally, there’s spillover.

            This happened the other day. I was walking through the wine and cheese section of my local Kroger (which has recently taken a hard left turn into BougieVille, population, apparently, one mid-market mass consumer grocer (aside within an aside, did I spell bougie right? Spell check within this aside confirms, yes)) when I very suddenly found myself deep in thoughts about the futility of life and its inevitable end. I cannot convey just how distracting this was. Normally, I’m a one-track-mind-get-in-get-out kind of grocery shopper with a tight list, a pre-planned cart route, and minimal time spent dithering in crowded aisles. Yet there I was, looking for low moisture part skim mozzarella as I slow to a stop somewhere between the fig spreads and Cabernets.

            Did I mention just how bougie my Kroger has become? It might be time to move.

             It is at this moment an intrusive thought comes screaming across the cosmos and plants itself firmly in my frontal cortex.

‘You know this doesn’t matter right? You’re going to die,’.

            ‘Yeah, I know that, BRAIN. That doesn’t mean I can’t TRY.’

            ‘Try, what exactly? Living forever?’

            ‘Well, I don’t know, obviously not that, but, like, this effort isn’t entirely pointless. Something has to matter. Why not the groceries I’m choosing?’

            How long have I been standing here? There’s sweat on my Halo Top. Too long, that’s the answer, I’ve been standing here too long.

            I’m socially awkward by nature and more so when I feel like I’m taking up unnecessary space. I quickly pretended to be extraordinarily interested in a bottle of wine with a strongman on it and yanked my cart out of traffic while I finished this argument with my inner monologue.

            Existential Dread is, among other things, perhaps one of the more artistic phobias to be consumed with. It is, by its nature, inextricably linked to existentialism, the philosophy. If you’re not super familiar with existentialism, the way I make peace with it in my head is it rides a razor’s edge between Nihilism and Stoicism. There’s a tenet of it that observes that life has no inherent meaning or structure, but rather meaning arises from existence, that one’s existence predates one’s meaning and therefor meaning is deterministic of the actions we take. It’s more optimistic than Nihilism which basically argues absolutely nothing matters so, fuck it, raise hell on your way out the door. And it’s less rigid than Stoicism which tends to overstay its welcome in the ‘virtue’ lessons and hold that life is, in fact, fated to play out in a certain way and we must embrace what comes our way (easy thing for an Emperor to say to the rest of us not preordained to rule Rome.) But, existentialism does embrace a bit of Nihilism’s chaos and accepts a bit of Stoicism’s self-actualization, just with a bit more of a sense of humor.

            Existentialism also recognizes that anxiety naturally arises from this tension: realizing our lives are no more than what we make them. My theory is most people align themselves with existentialism without realizing it. The midlife crisis is absolutely an extension of existential dread. A dawning comprehension every action you’ve taken in life has led you, perhaps not inevitably but by unconscious choice, to the spot you are in. And it’s not the spot you thought you’d be in.

            I’ll pause here. One, because we’re two paragraphs into a philosophy lesson and you’re here to talk about spooky stories. Two, I may have accidentally triggered an episode of existential dread in at least one of my readers and I’d like to give everyone a moment to catch their breath.