L’appel du Vide

I take you where you want to go 
I give you all you need to know 
I drag you down, I use you up 
Mr. Self Destruct

— Nine Inch Nails

Have you ever had a strange thought in your head, an inner voice suggesting actions that at best would be counterproductive (“jump in that pool with your clothes on!”) but often go straight to the outright fatal (“jump over the guardrail of this hundred foot high cliff!”)?

I by no means consider myself a suicide risk and have never seriously contemplated taking my own life, much less tried to do so. Hell, I don’t even like rollercoasters and have no idea why people would subject themselves to dangerous hobbies like skydiving and rock climbing. But that voice can still come up. I think no one likes to talk about it out of fear it will be misinterpreted as a cry for help, but it turns out the phenomenon is common enough the French even gave it a name: L’appel du Vide. “The Call of the Void.”

More scholarly studies use the less poetic term HPP, or “High Place Phenomenon”, but as the article I linked above points out that term can be misleading since L’appel du Vide can just as easily manifest as that thought while driving that just one swift tug of the steering wheel could send you against a retaining wall or into oncoming traffic. Or the flash vision you get of jumping in front of a subway train as it pulls into the station — visions I’ve at times had so potently I wonder if somewhere out in the theoretical multiverse there’s a Clint who did just that and so had his particular storyline come to an (assumed) abrupt end.

But it doesn’t even have to be a life-or-death situation. I remember one time being in a port-a-potty absolutely filthy from a long weekend of festival attendees, staring into that malodorous hole and pondering that just one slip and the iPhone I was holding would go tumbling right in, and then what would I do? And does the fact I’m even envisioning that mean there’s a destructive (and disgusting) part of me wanting to see what happens?

Well, it’s a comfort to know I’m not alone. And in fact that studies of the phenomenon suggest that what seem on the surface to be destructive and suicidal thoughts may in fact be the opposite, that the “Call of the Void” is in fact a wake-up call, a manifestation of survival instinct reminding us to pay very close attention when the line separating safety and disaster has gotten perilously thin. You envision yourself plummeting off that bridge or driving into the railroad crossing precisely because it would be so easy to do it, and nothing could stop you except your own awareness. And for that matter you’ll hold your cellphone just that much tighter as you lean over that port-a-potty hole or cruise ship railing, keenly aware of the consequences that being less mindful could bring.

And while this blog might not specifically relate to Zombie Ranch at first glance… it sure could give a new perspective on Repops, couldn’t it?