Just as psychoanalysis reconstructs the original traumatic situation in order to release the repressed material, so we are now being plunged back into the archaeopsychic past, uncovering the ancient taboos and drives that have been dormant for epochs . . . Each one of us is as old as the entire biological kingdom, and our bloodstreams are tributaries of the great sea of its total memory. (J. G. Ballard, The Drowned World, 1962, p. 41)
The recent passing of my friend, the writer, broadcaster and co-founder
of Critics At Large Kevin Courrier, prompted me to engage in
some spontaneous and unexpected speculations about mortality and the
finite nature of our charming little sojourns here on this odd earth.
Westerners who live in either Europe or North America don’t really like
to talk about death, or even to think about it if possible. It’s a
foreboding subject that fills us with fear and dread, probably as a
result of our trained expectation of punishment for sins of one kind or
another, of retribution in hell rather than a blissed-out vacation in
Shangri-La heaven. This is unlike Easterners from any numbers of
places, such as India, Japan or Tibet, let’s say, who don’t follow the
same template of a deity, or a messiah, or some supernatural figure
sitting on a throne in space who resembles Charlton Heston handing out
post-mortem candies.
