I’m going to be at the office tomorrow. The announced one week and a half vacation was going to have in-between (overtime) work days after all. Well, I’m not really complaining. But the thing is, I had to ask my colleagues first about what time they’ll report for work. See, I usually prefer to start working late in the afternoons during holidays; but I’m presuming not many will actually show up these coming days, so I have to make sure I’ll be out of the office as early as possible.
Scared of being alone in a large deserted workplace? You betcha! I make it a point not to listen to ghost stories that my officemates are only too fond to swap with each other because I’m fairly coward about such things. Anyway, this thought came to me when I was watching a favorite episode of The X-Files, which incidentally was about ghost hunting on Christmas eve. Scully had a very rational explanation why we fear ghosts so much:
Scully: These are tricks that the mind plays. They are ingrained cliches from a thousand different horror films. When we hear a sound, we get a chill. We see a shadow and we allow ourselves to imagine something that an otherwise rational person would discount out of hand.
The whole idea of a benevolent entity fits perfectly with what I’m saying. I mean, that a spirit would materialize or return for no other purpose than to show itself is silly and ridiculous. I mean, what it really shows is how silly and ridiculous we have become in believing such things.
I mean, that… that we can ignore all natural laws about the corporeal body that we witness these spirits clad in their own shabby outfits with the same old haircuts and hairstyles never ageing, never… never in search of more comfortable surroundings — it actually ends up saying more about the living than it does about the dead.
I mean, Mulder, it doesn’t take an advanced degree in psychology to understand the… the unconscious yearnings that these imaginings satisfy. You know, the longing for immortality, the hope that there is something beyond this mortal coil that we might never be long without our loved ones. I mean, these are powerful, powerful desires. I mean, they’re the very essence of what make us human. The very essence of Christmas, actually.
Well, she was really trying hard to convince herself there. I do prefer to take her opinion, though. I prefer not to see one. I don’t even look at so-called “proofs.” I mean, if you’ll see a ghost and you happen to have a Canon camera in hand, would you take a picture? Well, it’s fine if you will; just don’t show it to me.
to some extent, i believe in what she says. but then, i have seen a ghost myself, or is it just, “a trick the mind plays.”