Our theme for the month of October is “haunt.”
In a month about haunting, this hypothetical scenario—if I were a ghost— and its associated repercussions deserve careful, measured consideration.
First, the snuck assumption here is that it is possible to still be 100% myself without an embodied existence. I think, at this time, I don’t believe that’s possible. (There’s not a ton of theology or philosophy that informs this take, just my perhaps simplified and therefore likely uninformed dismissal of Descartes’s mind/body hierarchical binary and vague notions of the way biology informs mood and personality and intelligence, as well as the reality of our purposeful creation as physical humans and not simply intangible spirits. If you have opinions, I’d love to hear them!)
The second snuck assumption is that I would have unfinished business that necessitates ghostiness. From my (very limited) understanding of general ghost tales, those who are ghosts stick around to haunt a location (or a person) because they have some sort of unfinished business, be it regret or revenge or love or hate.
I’d like to think that I would die without need for revenge, or regret. I’m twenty, so it’s not like I know for sure, because living as if you’d die tomorrow while also being a future-oriented thinker is a massively difficult task, likely one I’ll be balancing until the day I do die. However, I have started writing bimonthly letters to my grandmother, and I’ve been calling my mom more. This weekend I walked into Lake Michigan fully clothed just for the heck of it. And when I’m at the YMCA and I watch all the elderly people come in for their water exercise classes, I pick out which old woman I’d like to grow up to be. The ones who are spunky-sweet, life-loving, and often ask me how I’m doing are the top contenders. If I keep living like that, I don’t think I’d ever get to the point at which I would need to become a ghost.
Now that those objections have been dealt with, if I was a ghost would I like it? My first thought is no, but I’ll make a pro/con list.
Pros:
- I’d get to hear all the tea!
- I’d get to experience decapitation or being eaten by a heavily toothed dinosaur or bathing in molten lava—all of which I’m terribly curious about—without adverse effects
Cons:
- I wouldn’t be able to gossip about the tea with anyone because I am a GHOST
- I wouldn’t be able to eat pickles
- I would have to choose a place to haunt and that seems like a lot of commitment
- I couldn’t adventure outdoors too much because it seems like the wind would be a pretty significant threat to my already precarious wispy existence
- I couldn’t make people feel welcome and comfortable and enjoy conversing with them because I am a GHOST and, while I don’t know that much about ghosts, I do know that usually people find them disquieting
- I wouldn’t be able to eat pickles!!! (This is the real tragedy)
The cons win. I would not like being a ghost. But if I were a ghost—because this is the hypothetical scenario in which I have forced myself to work—where would I haunt? I have two options I am unwilling to choose between. (I did already say I didn’t like commitment, right?) I would either haunt a little overgrown quarry up in the woods behind my childhood home or the college pool I swam in for years and years.
The quarry is a steep, not quite sheer, grey and curved wall of rock covered in soft deep moss or glittering icicles or damp wet yellow-brown leaves with little steps and crevices that sometimes saplings grew out of and a wide open space at the bottom. During Covid I did my schoolwork on a little lap desk up there, just to get out of the house, and years prior, I would build fairy houses or make potions or play Robin Hood. It is beautiful, and we have a history. It is also where the college kids in our little college town went to drink and smoke around a fire, and I think it would be hilarious to make them pee themselves from fright.
The Williams College pool is huge, fifty meters long, but divided into two twenty-five-yard sections. The water and the dingy white-grey tile on the deck are illuminated by cold white light set in high ceilings crisscrossed by white metal beams. I love pools and the smell of chlorine, and it would be fun to watch the swimming (and the drama, because be real, there’s always drama on sports teams).
In sum, I reject the possibility of ever being a ghost, and if I were to be a ghost I wouldn’t like it, but if I had to be one, I would haunt the pool or the quarry and hope to one day cease to exist in said ghostly form. How about you?
Savannah Shustack graduated from Calvin in 2024 with a major in literature and plans to have the job of “books” one day. Rather like Ken, she is still figuring life out; the job “books” provides plenty of wiggle room, though she’s currently leaning toward being a librarian. Savannah is a New England native who enjoys watching hockey (Go Bruins!) and playing board games—especially ones she can win.
I agree that i would prefer not to be a ghost, and I also agree that there’s not compelling theological or philosophical or scientific evidence for that platonic / gnostic existence of separating the body from spirit. But, that said, what the heck do I know?! Maybe there’s a degree of that kind of existence that we can’t know while embodied. But, if that’s the case, haunting one place would indeed be a dreadfully limiting and tedious way to spend an afterlife. I haunt my local coffee shop while I’m ALIVE and I already hate myself for it, I hope death will at least be a slight break in my routine.