Cosmic Horror and the Artistic Edge
Lovecraftian fiction is invariably the tale of someone who’s gone ‘too far’
On the Center and the Periphery
Joseph Campbell once said that most of us stay comfortably at the centre of human society and consciousness, with only scientists, philosophers, and artists willing to stray to the outer edge.
It’s true, of course. Most people do tend to stay closer to shore. People by and large approach anything out on the fringe with mincing, timid steps. New foods, new music, new art, new ideas: these are the things which the mainstream shuns, or at the very least, patently ignores. New is different; it’s uncomfortable and painfully unfamiliar. New is a challenge to preconceived worldviews, an exposure to unexplored (and thus unwelcome) vistas.
While a lot of us like to imagine ourselves ‘up for anything’, we rarely have the evidence to back this up. We nary stray far from familiar, because familiar is comfort, familiar is easy and secure. While that comfort and familiarity may be a comfortably familiar lie, it is OUR lie nonetheless. We stay where we’re safe and things make sense, because better the known (lie or otherwise) than what we don’t know. The dark of the unknown is frightening and thus unwelcome.
