Have you ever lied awake at night, unable to sleep because your mind can’t help but feel that something is watching you from the darkness? Have you walked past an abandoned building and felt the urge to enter, to see if there is anything interesting inside? Have you ever looked longingly into the far reaches of space or into the dark depths of the ocean and wondered at the infinite nothingness and what secrets they might hide? It’s a part of human nature, an innate desire of the mind to seek substance from nothingness. The brain is an organ of learning, of curiosity. It can’t help but try to search for something new or undiscovered within a realm of mystery or emptiness. It’s almost as if the mind is responding to an unheard call from within the shadows and it wants to discover the source. As such, I like to refer to this curiosity as “the call of the void”.
The call is different for everyone. For some it inspires thought and wonder. For others, fear and dread. It can drive the brave into becoming pioneers and the meek into seeking refuge in their own little realm of the known. No matter the effect, the call reaches out to everyone.
For some, the call takes what a person sees and causes them to overthink and fabricate false truths. They may stumble across some remnants of a creature that they have no reference for, or some marking too unusual for any known creature to create. Unable to make sense of it, they instead conjure up some rationale, attributing these mysteries to monsters and creating stories of cryptids and beasts. These tales get passed from person to person until they are turned into fairy tales and legendary myths, with truth lost to time. We have seen it with the ancient Greeks, who may have mistaken the bones of elephants or mammoths for the one-eyed cyclops, or the English who saw dinosaur fossils and created tales of dragons. The call has an effect to play tricks on the mind and cause it to go to extreme lengths outside the realm of reason to rationalize that which it does not understand.
I use the term “call of the void” to refer to any of these curious natures regarding the unknown, but the most prevalent source of the call is from the void itself, the shadowy abyss in which anything could be lurking. It’s the reason why you may have been scared of the dark as a child. You may have feared that there was some kind of monster or boogeyman lurking in the shadows under your bed or in your closet, despite there being no real evidence for this. It’s why we hear tales of sea monsters and examine fossils of creatures such as the Megalodon and can’t help but wonder what other behemoths may be hidden in the unfathomable depths of the ocean. It’s why we gaze into the deep dark of space and wonder if there is other life out there among the stars, and if it would seek to help or harm us.
These fears and curiosities shape the way we live; the call has the ability to mold our entire future. Some hear voices in the shadows and decide to search for invisible spirits as paranormal investigators. Those with an intense fascination with space become astronauts or astronomers, seeking extraterrestrial life and expanding humanity’s reach into the unknown. The mysteries of our own Earth and her oceans turn some into explorers, causing them to do whatever they can to explore the deepest reaches of the Mariana’s Trench or the countless cave systems below our feet.
The urge to explore and seek out the truth of mysteries sets us on a path that dictates our actions, and sometimes, the void doesn’t play nice. Explorers go missing, missions fail, people overcome by excitement get careless. Throughout history, things go wrong, and some tragedies inspire tales of evil forces, demons that dictate life’s mishaps. Fear of the unknown causes some to search for hope, for meaning. The call inspires many to turn to religion and may even inspire the creation of some religions themselves.
The human mind is a complex and incredible thing, always trying to seek answers for everything it can’t understand. In the pursuit of knowledge, many are put on a path towards greatness, and many more, a path to ruin. Misunderstandings and creative retellings result in literature and legends of great beasts or horrible entities, enriching the human culture and inspiring greater creativity among the minds of the curious. What we don’t understand makes us wonder, and the effect of this thought is different for each person, but your own fears and hopes can and will change your life. The void calls to everyone, but how will you respond?
WOW, so beautifully written! I've felt like this so many times, but never had the courage to actually talk about it or find the right words to articulate what I was feeling! I love how you described it as a "call of the void" and basically our minds in the pursuit of knowledge bend and believe certain things according to our fears and interests. Thank you so much for this insight, and I will now be more aware when the "void calls to me."
ReplyDeleteThis is a really cool piece. It's a thought that has passed through my mind, but not one that I could express. It's almost a fascination of your own fear of the unknown and the idea is quite unique to see. You articulated yourself quite well, and the question at the end feels chilling honestly. Incredibly entertaining to read!
ReplyDeleteThis piece was very interesting to read since I never really thought about this call of the void too much until now. The different examples you give about the effects the void has were also very creative and kept my attention throughout the entire piece.
ReplyDeleteI can not say enough good things about this piece. Your first sentence really works to grab the reader's attention from the start and you continue to hold the reader's attention for the entirety of the piece. Also, your use of imagery works so well to help the reader understand and relate to your points. Overall, this was amazingly done!
ReplyDeleteMark, your piece was amazing! The flow of the writing, the explanation of your interpretation of curiosity, as well as your own creation of "the call of the void" was extremely intriguing. I love the question asked at the very end, it really makes a person think. Thank you for sharing such well-written piece, as I enjoyed reading to the very end.
ReplyDeleteMark,
ReplyDeleteLet me just say this: Wow, just WOW. This just explained everything, and I have always had thoughts and curiosities about the unknown. Every time I go to the beach, I always look and wonder, "what's out there?" The same with space, and darkness. You summed up all of the many thoughts I've had as a child and still have now PERFECTLY, and the unknown has always driven my want to expand and learn more. I admit that I am indeed one of those people who have a fascination of the unknown, and a want to know what can be found in it. The detail and wording was excellent, and it was beautifully written. Outstanding work, seriously, amazing. Thank you for sharing!
-Jesse Ortiz
An amazing description! What made this writing so poignant was your understanding of this call as a source of greatness and of destruction. There is no finer line to walk on than the one between our safety and human progress. Equally as interesting was how you described the ability of curiosity to be an inspiration for wondrous creativity while inspiring knowledge of our own reality. It is without a doubt astounding how the imaginary can be just as striking and beautiful as the real and tangible.
ReplyDeleteThis piece was written very well and the literature was composed on a very high level. It was very interesting and cool to see how you described something abstract and unique that the majprity of individuals don't discuss. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteMark, this is such a well written piece and I love the name you came up for that curiousity in all of us the “call of the void”! I really love the topic you explored and I found myself agreeing with a lot of the points you said. It is so interesting how imaginative the human mind can be. I love the bit when you talked about this curiousity causes people to fabricate tales. Overall, this was an interesting breakdown of the way we try to find answers to things we don’t understand.
ReplyDeleteOh. My. Goodness. MARK!!! FIRST OF ALL, THE RHETORICAL QUESTION AT THE END!!!! Absolutely ingenious! I loved the juxtaposition between reality and imagination, really emphasizing the fine line between what's true, and what is made out to be true. You hooked me in with your rhetorical questions at the beginning, and commend you for starting and ending in the same way. Your piece was like a crescendo, leading to a climactic body, and ending with a diminuendo; ending where you started, but with much more enlightenment than the beginning! I haven't been on a rollercoaster in quite some time, so thank you for reminding me what that feels like! :D
ReplyDeleteThis was amazing and a well thought out piece. This was beautiful and had a lot of diction and description of what you were trying to say.
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