my (very selfish) problem with ghosts
Setting aside the crazier crackpot “science,” behind ghost detection or “real-life ghostbusters,” being a young American with a couple hours each week dedicated to Leisure Time, I have more than once been in the middle of a conversation about non-institutional spirituality: the persistence of a personality - person or animal, outside of a physical body, sometimes attached to a storied place, but more often to individual loved ones where closure is needed on either side of the relationship - that the more empathic among my friends have an experience to share which allows them to conclude that it’s possible, that they remain open to the idea.
I’ll allow that I’m predisposed to disbelief concerning these sorts of things. I combat my paranoia and anxiety with science-minded/empirical logic and a suppressed field of emotions. I also don’t understand how one can remain open to these ideas and closed to other forms of spirituality.
But mostly, when I hear people recounting the sensation of their passed-on, beloved cat’s perpetuated presence, or the reassuring feeling of warmth when visited or blessed by a passed-on family member, all I can think about is how I’ve never felt that. And frankly, I’d rather be wholly dismissive of the idea than to believe that no matter how dearly I’ve cared for anyone or anything that has passed on, that love has never been reciprocated enough for a haunting or visitation of any kind.
If these (hypothetical) spirits have the ability to visit loved ones after their passing, and I have yet to be visited by any one of many people or animals I’ve loved that have died, then how am I supposed to feel other than unloved and abandoned?
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