After a brief pause, he continued.
It has been, by my calculation, one year, five months, and twenty-two days since I last posted anything here. I suppose I should offer some sort of reason or excuse for that, so here it is: I was busy.
With that out of the way, I plan to return to a regimen of once-or-twice monthly postings. Maybe less, maybe more. It all depends.
On that highly precise and specific note, please allow me to shift gears and talk about something else. I thought I would begin with a confession of sorts: I am afraid of the dark. Terrified, really.
Of course I'm not really afraid of the dark, I'm afraid of what might be lurking in it. Any psychologist worth his schadenfruede could tell you that. Darkness hides things, and for all I know it could be hiding a murderer or a decaying corpse or some dread combination of the two. I fear the dark because I fear the unknown, and I fear the unknown because for all I know, it could be plotting to jump out and kill me in a frightening, painful, closed-casket sort of way.
Some people have tried to help me by suggesting other, more tangible things that I could fear instead of the dark. I could be concerned about going deaf at forty, for instance, because of all the ear infections I had as a kid. I could fret that I might open my mailbox one day to find a notice from my bank saying that my account has been empty for six months and didn't I get the last 27 notices and please make immediate payment of $5,000 in overdraft fees. I could worry that a small, undetectable fuel leak in my car might cause it to explode on the way home from the video store. Or I could dread the day that the bird flu finally gets on a plane and kills us all.
These are only a few of the suggestions I have received. My acquaintances have offered me dozens more, and though I know they mean well, I find it hard sometimes to display the proper gratitude. It seems to me that I once heard something about ignorance and bliss, and how they often go hand in hand. I'm not sure they really do, of course. My fear of the dark is the result of ignorance, and I would hardly call it blissful. But at the same time, it's not the worst thing I have to deal with. There might be a slavering beast around the next corner, but then again, there might not; there might even be, instead of the beast, a table with a nice pint of dark beer on it, and possibly a door leading to an evening poker game or a grand piano which I can play to my heart's content. That's the thing about the unknown: you just never know.
With that out of the way, I plan to return to a regimen of once-or-twice monthly postings. Maybe less, maybe more. It all depends.
On that highly precise and specific note, please allow me to shift gears and talk about something else. I thought I would begin with a confession of sorts: I am afraid of the dark. Terrified, really.
Of course I'm not really afraid of the dark, I'm afraid of what might be lurking in it. Any psychologist worth his schadenfruede could tell you that. Darkness hides things, and for all I know it could be hiding a murderer or a decaying corpse or some dread combination of the two. I fear the dark because I fear the unknown, and I fear the unknown because for all I know, it could be plotting to jump out and kill me in a frightening, painful, closed-casket sort of way.
Some people have tried to help me by suggesting other, more tangible things that I could fear instead of the dark. I could be concerned about going deaf at forty, for instance, because of all the ear infections I had as a kid. I could fret that I might open my mailbox one day to find a notice from my bank saying that my account has been empty for six months and didn't I get the last 27 notices and please make immediate payment of $5,000 in overdraft fees. I could worry that a small, undetectable fuel leak in my car might cause it to explode on the way home from the video store. Or I could dread the day that the bird flu finally gets on a plane and kills us all.
These are only a few of the suggestions I have received. My acquaintances have offered me dozens more, and though I know they mean well, I find it hard sometimes to display the proper gratitude. It seems to me that I once heard something about ignorance and bliss, and how they often go hand in hand. I'm not sure they really do, of course. My fear of the dark is the result of ignorance, and I would hardly call it blissful. But at the same time, it's not the worst thing I have to deal with. There might be a slavering beast around the next corner, but then again, there might not; there might even be, instead of the beast, a table with a nice pint of dark beer on it, and possibly a door leading to an evening poker game or a grand piano which I can play to my heart's content. That's the thing about the unknown: you just never know.
posted by Oliver Lemke at 11:14 AM
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