Death / Decay

<n>Gerhard Richter</n>'s painting <n>Skull with Candle</n> (1983), used as album cover art for the band <n>Sonic Youth</n>.

Photograph of a poppy by <n>Irving Penn</n>.

A still from <n>Ingmar Bergman</n>'s 1957 film, <n>The Seventh Seal</n>, featuring <n>Bengt Ekerot</n> as Death.

**Death wish**

*The urge to jump affirms the urge to live*



Not everyone is cut from the same cloth. Some are cut from silk. Others, from a burlap sack. While the vast majority of tourists who visit the Eiffel Tower are inspired to take photographs of the bird’s eye view of Paris, a select few find themselves overwhelmed with the urge to jump.



The French call this phenomenon L’appel du Vide, which translates to the “call of the void”. It’s an impulse that’s not strictly unique to leaping from tall ledges. If you’ve ever felt the sudden urge to run your vehicle into a tree or jump in front of a moving train, these too are examples of L’appel du Vide.



When psychologist first caught wind of L’appel du Vide, they assumed it was associated with suicidal thoughts. However, upon further study, they dubbed the bizarre feeling the High Place Phenomenon and wrote that, “The urge to jump affirms the urge to live…”



Years ago, Sigmund Freud theorized that all humans possess what is called a “Death Drive” or “Death Wish” where we have an urge to self-destruct.



While this might not necessarily mean leaping from the Eiffel Tower, it could mean gambling huge amounts of money, blowing up a happy marriage, having an affair with your boss, picking a fight at a bar and engaging in any sort of risky behavior you know deep down will ultimately lead to your demise.



Surely you’ve felt this?



Life, work and love are going well. Too well. You find yourself either bored or anxious that the other shoe will drop like a guillotine atop your head. And so you beat the shoe to the punch. You self-destruct before life has the chance to destroy you first.



The answer, as it so often is in this newsletter, is to create.



When you are bored, create. When you are sad, create. When you are restless, create. When you are anxious, create. When you are overwhelmed (perhaps with a feeling of L’appel du Vide), create.



Boredom, sadness, restlessness, anxiety and overwhelm are fuel for the creative process; and it is my belief that if we don’t burn this fuel in a creative way, it will devour us totally.



// Cole Schafer

A mid-16th century painting by the <n>Netherlandish School</n>.

An illustration depicting the concepts of <n>Life, Death, Time, Eternity</n>.

<n>Evelyn De Morgan</n>'s <n>Pre-Raphaelite</n> painting, "<n>The Angel of Death</n>" (1880).

<n>Allegory of the Tree of Life</n> (1653), a Baroque memento mori painting by <n>Ignacio de Ries</n>.