The Void is Coming from Inside the House!
Many people paraphrase Cousin Fred1 as having said: “If you stare into the void long enough the void stares back.” The better translation from Beyond Good and Evil is, I think, “(a)nd if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."2 Why, because I’m a damn pedant.
Actually (stage direction shoves glass up on bridge of nose) I think there is a distinction to be made.
Gaze and stare are different actions. Gaze carries with it an implication of regard, curiosity, and awe.3 We gaze upon things we do not understand. Staring by contrast is a hyper-fixation. When we stare we are experiencing a perceptual narrowing - tunnel vision - which excludes access to outside information. We hyper fixate when we are in a state of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) arousal - we perceive a threat.4
So in the context of Freddy’s observation if we are staring at the abyss (or void) we are perceiving it as a threat. If we are gazing upon the abyss it is something we hold as neutral or positive.
In the context of self discovery, trauma recovery, and post-traumatic growth I think we all start out staring at the gaps, the voids, the abyss. It’s scary as fuck. There is a gaping maw we perceive in our sense of self and that can be precipice from which we may struggle to step back.
Once of the things I’ve been working on in my own growth and healing is recognizing when I’m staring at the abyss and trying to change my focus. I coach myself to pull back from the hyper-fixation. My goal is to stop staring and start gazing.
I think of my experiences hiking. If you find yourself atop a high place looking out at the world you may experience feelings of awe. There is a feeling of both complete separation and at-one-ment that I have experienced in these moments. You might have had the feeling of transcendence in that moment too.
You may also feel like jumping. This feeling happens to A LOT of people. Even those without any kind of depression issues or suicide ideation experience intrusive thoughts.
That’s the abyss. It’s powerful and it speaks to both our experience of lack and our experience of total unity.
Jean Piaget put forth his framework of Cognitive Development that humans evolve through a series of stages. In our infancy we go through the Sensorimotor Stage in which we begin to perceive the world and interact with it. Part of the sensorimotor stage is recognizing the “I” that I am an individual and that everything outside me is “other.” Jaques Lacan argues that this is the origin of our void.5
Here’s the thing. You can’t fill an abyss6. If you throw things into the abyss - a couch, your objectification of an idol that will complete your quest7, or yourself - the abyss doesn’t fill up. It consumes - like a black hole or Unicron.8
So, what do we do?
We gaze at the abyss. We regard it. We are curious about it. And in time - and with a lot of work - we learn to find its shape. And as we heal from the trauma and the fear we are able to put up some caution tape around the edges. We can gaze into the abyss, and let it gaze back, and do it with a bit more assurance we won’t tread too close to the edge. We give ourselves space to contemplate the vastness without unwittingly stepping on a fragile bit of the edge.
Cheers
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm#link2HCH0004:~:text=146.%20He%20who%20fights%20with%20monsters%20should%20be%20careful%20lest%20he%20thereby%20become%20a%20monster.%20And%20if%20thou%20gaze%20long%20into%20an%20abyss%2C%20the%20abyss%20will%20also%20gaze%20into%20thee.
I want to acknowledge Laura Mulvey’s framework of “The Male Gaze.” She posits that in cinema there is a dominate archetype of a heteronormative and regards women’s bodies as objects. Mulvey’s first work on this is from 1973.
I can write for thousands of words on this, but this is a blog not a book. TL;DR - when we perceive a threat our SNS kicks in. This is often called a fight or flight response. Here is a quick primer on the way it works.
I started down the path of this idea when I read Peter Rollins book The Idolatry of God. Rollin is a post-structuralist theologian and has some really engaging work on this stuff. He describes himself as a Christian; his pyrotheology isn’t a classic Christianity by any sense. He was my gateway drug to the work of Lacan. Also the bookstore I linked to is my favorite and they are an employee Co-Op. You should order it from them.
Watch the video from the point it starts to 10:12 if you haven’t see the Transformers cartoon movie.