When I went through my existential crisis in 1982, I could no longer repress thoughts of death. My worldview had collapsed, and I sunk into depression. Everything looked like death. Although the event was not a factor in this, our home was located across the feeder road from where a tanker crashed several years earlier and released ammonia gas into the neighborhood where we ended up living. (https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/1976-7443377.php) In that event this entire neighborhood had to be evacuated. People died. In this setting, "a death was planted in my body." So, three years before WHITE NOISE was written, my personal philosopher recommended certain works for me to read, among them Sartre's NO EXIT and NAUSEA. I remember experiencing nausea within the first few pages, so we went back to the drawing board. I ended up reading DENIAL OF DEATH, by Ernest Becker, which put the whole issue in perspective and gave me a way of organizing these irrepressible thoughts of death. My "Existential BARBIE" journey is history, but your reflection has taken me back to a turning point in my life. <3
Yeah. Those were the days, weren't they? Don't you miss the sound of cars smashing into light poles at night? The white noise of freeway traffic? The silent death radiating from the transformer perched above the bedroom?
When I went through my existential crisis in 1982, I could no longer repress thoughts of death. My worldview had collapsed, and I sunk into depression. Everything looked like death. Although the event was not a factor in this, our home was located across the feeder road from where a tanker crashed several years earlier and released ammonia gas into the neighborhood where we ended up living. (https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/1976-7443377.php) In that event this entire neighborhood had to be evacuated. People died. In this setting, "a death was planted in my body." So, three years before WHITE NOISE was written, my personal philosopher recommended certain works for me to read, among them Sartre's NO EXIT and NAUSEA. I remember experiencing nausea within the first few pages, so we went back to the drawing board. I ended up reading DENIAL OF DEATH, by Ernest Becker, which put the whole issue in perspective and gave me a way of organizing these irrepressible thoughts of death. My "Existential BARBIE" journey is history, but your reflection has taken me back to a turning point in my life. <3
I note Robert's reflection "has taken" you "back to a turning point..." I, as a keen observer of
you, < think you are living a life with many turning points that validate your personal direction.
Yeah. Those were the days, weren't they? Don't you miss the sound of cars smashing into light poles at night? The white noise of freeway traffic? The silent death radiating from the transformer perched above the bedroom?
I just remember how frightening it was when there was no noise in the pitch black night after moving away from the city....