Reality and its subtle Horror

"Pelle: So believe me when I tell you that I know what it’s like. Because I do, I really, really do. Yet my difference is, I never got the chance to feel lost, because I had a family here, where everyone embraced me, and swept me up. And I was raised by a community that doesn’t bicker over what’s theirs and what’s not theirs. That’s what you were given. But I have always felt held. By a family. A real family. Which everyone deserves. And you deserve.

[Pelle holds Dani’s hand] Dani: Pelle, Christian could walk in. Pelle: He’s what I’m talking about. He’s my good friend, and I like him. But, Dani, do you feel held by him? Does he feel like home to you? "

—MIDSOMMAR

The month of March of 2021 marks a year when the virus of SARS-CoV-2 hit us like a ton of bricks. We were warned about the very real possibility of a zoonotic virus reaching our society, and we were forewarned of the inability of our current lifestyle to sustain such a pandemic. We pushed through, regardless, and have taken the bricks like a ton of champs.

I for one did my part in the pandemic by allowing myself to stay at home and indulge in the best that media had to offer. Amongst the many movies

, games, songs and books I powered through within my isolation, there was one in particular that took up most of my nights and days: Bloodborne. This Fromsoftware's action role-playing game set in a Victorian-era inspired city filled to the brim with blood and cosmic horror was both the bane of my existence and the only reason I was able to retain little of the sanity I still retain.

The game throws you into a world suffering through a plague, which makes it easier to empathize with the main character right from the get go given the circumstances. As you work your way into trying to stop the infection at its source up to the point where you finish the game, your character is introduced to a series of cosmic horror elements that give you, the player, an understanding of how small and insignificant a single human is in the grand scheme of it all.

Again, it's important to note this is a game I am playing for a myriad of hours inside of my isolation. I went through all manners of emotional distress, affecting my mood left to right. I went from a nihilistic depression, to a deep pessimism, to a number of anxiety attacks, to yet another number of anger fits. All of this as I died again and again within this fictional world of beasts and hunters and cosmic entities inadvertently decimating all human life within the world beneath them.

Ultimately though, there is repose.

A lasting calm that does not go away after subsequent playthroughs.

Even more so, a serenity that would last after exiting the world of escapism when I dipped my toes into the outside reality.

I found myself reading through the news, reading of the rise of cases; reading on my feed about family of old acquaintances getting infected or going through it, and I'd feel that calming nihilism of "none of this matters much in the grand scheme of things as they are, as I am, small and insignificant."

We are specks of dust on the tapestry of an indifferent universe.

I was at peace in my isolation. My anger and anxieties, assuaged.

And then there was the return.

I received a call, as many others did. A call back to the world, to the workforce, to a civilization of safe distance, clean and safety measures; a call back to social ques, small talk, and every day subtleties.

Although initially anxious, I was excited to go back and seeing everyone I hadn't seen. It did not matter if I had particularly missed one person or another, I was excited to see people again nonetheless.

I was excited to see what new people had been formed during this period of isolation. Who'd been beat by their own particular version of cabin fever, and who had powered through it and became better people because of it as I had.

Come June 2020, and I was back at work, and everything I was so proud to consider insignificant, suddenly wasn't.

The murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd caused a nation to mourn, and yearn for justice.

Said justice was delivered in the form of federal forces deployed into protests and curfews imposed on numerous cities.

Yulia Tsvetkova, a Russian artist and now political prisoner, faces up to 6 years in prison for running a feminist blog.

Moscow police arrested 40 peaceful protestors who expressed solidarity towards the artist.

China passed a new security law for Hong Kong that cracks down on free speech, people's personal security, and basically prohibits most forms of protests.

Back in the workforce we hear the all so common conversation about the people around us infected, suffering and dying through this pandemic.

Around the world, civil unrest reigned supreme.

The amount of horror in the world had no clear solution, but an overall clear source: injustice. Circling back to the game of bloodborne, the so called "scourge of the beasts" (which is basically that world's plague) had a simple solution. Regardless of the path you took and the ending you came to in the game, the overall solution to everything is to just go at it with a weapon and kill all. Kill all beasts, kill all scholars, kill all the great one's kids.

In the world outside of bloodborne though, a world that no amount of eldritch horror can prepare you for, what is there to do? What is the overall clear solution to the scourge of men that afflict us all?

How do we kill all that pains us in this tumultuous world of subtleties and abstract truths?

How do we kill ignorance, intolerance, bigotry, prejudice, bias, anger, hate, injustice, and even mistakes? Could we possibly kill it all in a way we could salt the crops and it won't be back? Is there truly any death to most of anything that comes along with anything that is human at all?

Is it part of human nature to be this ill?

What can we, as a civilization and as a new generation, do to improve upon this scourge of men?

I have no definite answer, but I have a suggestion:

I propose we hold each other and we allow one another to be held.

To hold is much more than an act of physicality.

It's empathy.

We so often hurl ourselves unto a suffering person to hold them in our arms; we offer sanctuary and repose in our hugs to express our empathy.

Now, in this world of 6-feet apart, to hold a person is yet another danger we put ourselves and each-other in.

And so, I offer a hug in the form of understanding.

To be present in moments of such tepidness, and be present at mind and heart.

I propose we hold each-other as family, as strangers who want nothing else but to care for one another as kin.

In a world of such turmoil and unrest, let's offer empathy.

Let's help and allow other to help us.

Let's listen and dialogue.

Let yourself and others feel one's emotions.

Let's make a home out of this world we live on.

Let's hold each-other,

as family.