Limbo

Recently, I’ve found myself in a situation, where important things with life-altering consequences are undecided and I’ve thought a lot about “limbo”. It is no fun. Psychologically, uncertainty is one of the most stressful conditions there is. So I researched a bit…

In a religious sense, “Limbo” or purgatory generally refers to the postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation, and is used, in a non-specific sense, to mean any place or condition of suffering or torment, especially one that is temporary. You basically don’t know if you are dammed or saved.

One of my favorite shows is “6 Feet Under” from HBO. The show is about a dysfunctional California family that runs a funeral home. To continue the limbo-track, at one point, someone disappears in Six Feet Under. She is the sister, wife and mother to someone and she is gone. She was supposed to meet someone, and she never showed up. As viewer, we undergo the same horrific thoughts as her husband. Did she leave? Did she leave with a lover? Did she commit suicide? Was she killed? Was there an accident? The uncertainty continues through a couple of episodes and is heinous. When we finally learn of her fate, which your really should watch for yourself, the relief is palpable.

In recent years, the Maddie McMann-case has had the attention of the media. The story of the missing 3-year old, who was taken from her hotel room while her parents were eating tapas 100 yards away, resurfaces once in a while. Through phantom-drawings, we see what she would look like now, at age 4- 5- 6 – and it simply breaks my heart. How the parents – people in a situation of uncertainty like that – not knowing the fate of your child – carry on, I cannot imagine.

But not all limbo is no fun!! Like in this godawful TV-concept, where fame-hungering idiots are put in “Total Blackout” and told that there is a limbo-rod with electricity, that will shock them if they touch it (there IS no rod! In another episode, someone gets to smell an ass (again, in the dark) and when he guesses rightly, that it is someone’s sour ass, he vomits! GREAT entertainment!! The Aliens studying us from outer space must be very impressed with the human race!!):

While I wait for things to fall into place, I take control where I can and relax with the comforting thought that some people must be more desperate than I, if they willingly enter that form of televised humiliation.