The current issue of the Oxford American arrived in my mailbox a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been savoring its contents, bit by bit, ever since, not wanting the experience to end. But now I have finished, and I find the piece that has stayed with me the most is David Gessner’s article “The Dreamer Did Not Exist: A Boy’s Obsession with Nonexistence.”

David Gessner is, primarily, an essayist and a nature writer. He’s the author of several books, including The Prophet of Dry Hill and Soaring with Fidel. Though originally from the Cape Cod area, he now lives in North Carolina, where he teaches at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He is also the editor of the magnificent literary magazine Ecotone.

In this article, Gessner is recalling a pig roast he attended with his students. While he’s partaking in the pleasure of tearing into the “porcine carcass,” he is drawn into thought, especially the thought of why every one of these writers, including himself, is there. To write, obviously, but what compels them to do so? Ah, yes, that question again. Why do you write? It is, seemingly, inescapable, but instead of the usual answers, Gessner gives his readers an alarming (although somewhat amusing) take on why he is a writer.

This is what he first says: “… the truth is I haven’t thought too deeply about it, and, if I did, I suspect the real answers would be significantly darker and less verbal. A series of angry but self-asserting grunts, maybe. A howl or a pounding on my chest.”

You see, during Gessner’s late childhood, he was traumatized by the death of his dog. “Lots of kids start to worry about death around this age, I understand, but not many to the point of pathology. Lying in bed at night, a thought—or, more accurately, a series of thoughts—would grip hold of my mind. It was these thoughts that would constitute my first full-blow obsession.”

Just what were those thoughts? A profound fear of nonexistence. “A sudden and overpowering sense that there was nothing in the world: that the world and, more importantly, that *I* didn’t exist.”

These thoughts produced panic attacks that a psychiatrist described as a bad LSD trip. Oh joy of all joys. Did it come with the strychnine induced jaw clench?

Luckily, this fear phased out during Gessner’s teens. But the mark was made. He began to imagine being a writer, a great writer, an immortal writer.

The possibility of one’s words living on and on after the author’s death, brought up the topic of memoir. What is the craze all about? Gessner asks. “Doesn’t a lot of it come down to just this: Here is my life. I *lived*. I made my mark. Don’t forget me, *please*.”

According to Ernest Becker, the author of The Denial of Death, much of a person’s existence is spent denying that his or her existence will end. And so we try to make a name for ourselves. “Becker says that in our realization that we are nothing, we fight to stand out, to be *something*, trying to build a narcissistic shield around ourselves that keeps death out.” What can we do to make a name for ourselves, to deny the one certainty of our existence? We find an obsession to fill “the death hole.” Becker points out that death always wins, and therefore, everything a person does is an illusion. Looks like Gessner’s childhood self was right. But Gessner offers another choice: “What if we acknowledge that all our dear passions—ambitions for fame or love or spirituality—are illusions, and then go trudging ahead without them?”

Yes, dear reader, what then?


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