“If I couldn’t write, and I had to just sit here, I’d probably take the shock after a while. Wouldn’t you?”

I completely get this, because I have plenty of life experience when I felt this way and I know plenty of people who still feel similarly. So, what I’m about to say is within that context.

Short answer: No.

A bit longer answer: It is my opinion, based on personal experience, that the reason we can’t sit in the silence for too long is not simply that we become nervous or anxious. It’s not simply because the sense of darkness makes us involuntarily recoil or fall asleep. It’s not simply because the darkness can force us to confront our deepest fears and insecurities.

It’s because we a) don’t have any frame of reference that something lies beyond the darkness, b) that it can be surprisingly easy to penetrate it, and that what often keeps us from doing that is putting greater values on fears and insecurities than on penetrating the so-called ‘veil’, c) we are typically unable to stay lucid and awake long enough to penetrate the darkness (although some people might use psychedelics, etc., to help get themselves there) and d) once we get there we have no idea what to do, how to navigate, or how to behave.

I happen to really like the essay title referring to the “Terrors of Nothingness.” Because, in my opinion, it is our own terrors that the darkness can raise up within us that prevent us from taking a conscious and deliberate step through that curtain.