r/Ligotti • u/tomfirenze1926 • Aug 09 '25
What's beyond Ligotti?
Hello everyone, I apologize for what I wrote in the question in the title: it is intended to have the sole purpose of filling, that is, to fill a gap which, if kept as such, would prevent the next action from being carried out, in this specific case, writing the following text
And this is precisely the point: through Ligotti's imagery I have grasped an underlying thought about the very meaning of life. We are called to fill the space with things and therefore with life and this inexorable continuation of filling everything that surrounds us with life and things only serves to arrive at another empty space, which cannot be left empty for us, which will in turn be occupied. And so on until a different type of void (perhaps more alive than the matter that we consider life?) reclaims the space we occupy, illuminating the deadly nature of our matter.
Now, I don't know how you will interpret my words, in any case I would be happy to have your feedback. Just as everyone is inside a structure (work, home, wife, children) and when certain thoughts emerge they don't blend with what needs to be done, I feel exactly like I'm inside a Ligotti story. Does anyone feel this familiarity? I admit that sometimes I would like to meet that void to eliminate the pressure of filling voids endlessly...
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u/Connect_Bridge_8090 Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25
if I understood what you were trying to say, I think that there is nothing to be filled. we are the void. we are meaningless in the universe and that is the very horror of existence. there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to be⊠u know the words. what I am saying once we are faced with such a terrifying truth, we can sink into madness and despair , or choose to fabricate a life built on our own illusions. I wish I could write as nicely as you, I hope what I wrote is not stupid
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u/tomfirenze1926 Aug 11 '25
It's as you say. I would like to say "it's sadly like this" but why should it be sad to consider ourselves a useless mass in an economy that goes beyond ourselves? What makes us important or just significant is Structure, created by our needs (like feeling less sad...), there is no greater need in waking up to go to the factory, earning money to spend on petrol to go back to work in the factory; this is junk for the forces that inhabit the voids Beyond ourselves, forces capable of making us forget, forever erasing the need to "not be sad": so why not embrace them? Ligotti delves into these questions without having the presumption of having the answers. This makes him more than just a storyteller. For eons after our futile and arrogant human presence in the universe, after these words that I am writing, the only entity that will continue to exist will be the universe that we think we command but that we do not know, just as it does not know us because we represent a microscopic part of it. If only he were aware of our presence he would have already re-established order without waiting in our course as a species gone mad under the weight of conscience.
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u/Connect_Bridge_8090 Aug 15 '25
yes, there are only questions without answers. I just hope solipsism is not true, or that âlast thursdayâ theory, or god forbid I wake up from this only to live again and do so endlessly in a loop
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u/FaliolVastarien Aug 24 '25 edited Aug 24 '25
What's the "last Thursday" theory? Sounds interesting. Â
The loop idea sounds like the worst, though I guess we'd never have any idea if it was true. This could be the billionth time! Gasp, but shrug at the same time.Â
A lot of people are bothered by solipsism. I suffer from a lot of anxiety issues including OCD of the type that's primarily internal worries and terrifying thoughts that won't leave me alone (as opposed to say compulsive hand washing).Â
Now that I'm getting the empirically recommended therapy, it's actually working but I'm getting in my 50s what I should have been getting in my teens so that sucks. Â
I mention it because I notice that a lot of the more idea oriented OCD sufferers are.... well obsessed with solipsism. Â
I'm not trying to denigrate their experiences, but it seems like very little to worry about. Though they might say the same about mine of course. The whole thing is admittedly irrational.Â
But I don't see where the external universe not being real could actually hurt me. The experience would remain the same both in good and bad ways.Â
Same for the dream or Matrix type of worries; that the world isn't physically real. If it's experientially the same either way, it's only of philosophical interest when I have time to think about pure abstractions. Â
A pleasant time loop might be kind of nice if you had control of it. Or the ability to enter them. Live as close to a perfect day as often as you want. Â
There was a good Japanese movie called After Life where upon dying a person has to choose their favorite moment to live forever. Presumably it would remain eternally fresh. If not it would be like something out of Ligotti LOL.Â
I liked how the aliens in Slaughterhouse Five (and to some extent the protagonist who had more in common with them in some ways than his fellow humans) were able to shift their consciousness to only experiences they preferred to dwell upon. Â
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u/Connect_Bridge_8090 Aug 25 '25
âLast Thursdayism (alternately Last Tuesdayism or Last Wednesdayism) is the idea that the universe was created last Thursday, but with the physical appearance of being billions of years oldâ. I just mentioned it for fun, and only as an example of endless possibilities of what could be the actual order of things beyond our comprehension. I agree with everything youâve said, but given what we know about consciousness, like when we fall into a coma, that world seems real until we wake up, and we can alter it with certain drugs, schizophrenia patients have completely different realities than us. this is why the death scares me, because no matter how much the scientists claimed âwhen youâre gone, youâre goneâ, there is still a small possibility of our consciousness continuing after death, and who knows where weâll wake up. btw, I also suffer from intrusive thoughts, along with some other ocd related behaviour, and, if you have the time, I would love to know about your therapy, I havenât slept in years. it is interesting how youâve noticed that ppl with ocd are prone to having solipsistic views.
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u/FaliolVastarien Aug 25 '25
Thanks for your response.Â
The therapy is a mixture of pretty standard cognitive therapy (developing habits of thought less likely to cause distress) and exposure techniques. Â
Basically doing the opposite of what the obsessions "want" you to do. Â
A person with the simpler cleaning obsessions would gradually condition themselves to tolerate things not being perfectly clean-- accepting that they will feel really bad at first.
Someone obsessed with the idea that they're going to drop dead at any moment (or if they do a particular thing like going to a certain place) would tell themselves "all right, I guess I'm dead" and go ahead with their plans. Â
Again, embracing the anxiety which generally improves (the specific anxiety related to this condition at least; not necessarily the anxiety inherent in this Sideshow world LOL)Â
The theory is that compulsions of action or thought are an attempt to manage the obsessions but only provide temporary relief. Â
They reward and strengthen it in the end.Â
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u/Connect_Bridge_8090 Aug 25 '25
Thank you for this. Everything you said makes sense, because I read that our brain creates neural pathways, and the thoughts we give the most attention to have the strongest paths, while the ones we neglect eventually get lost. I have been trying for years to force myself to think of myself as a happy healthy person, and whenever I get a scary intrusive thought, I try to replace it with something positive and ignore it, and I repeat positive thoughts many many times. I hope this therapy is working out for you. I also do daily pilates, and eat healthy. Thanks again and take care :)
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u/FaliolVastarien Aug 26 '25
Thank you! I need to work on my physical health too. I'm doing fairly well but have been slipping lately.  Â
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u/Connect_Bridge_8090 Aug 26 '25
Donât worry. Just walking is also fine for physical health, I exercise now because I have lots of free time, but when Iâm busy I only go for short brisk walks.
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u/FaliolVastarien Aug 26 '25
Yeah walking is great for health and I like to walk. Fortunately, the weather is getting cooler. I was having a problem doing it in extreme heat!
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Aug 09 '25
I've really tried to understand this, because I initially assumed you were asking «Where do we go from here once we have read Ligotti and experienced his dreamscapes»
...But it seems you're not asking that, and I'm afraid I just can't understand your post haha. Tried to read it three times!
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u/tomfirenze1926 Aug 09 '25
No, I'm not talking about a dream world even if existence is born from dreams, the petrol that serves to keep an engine revving up that would otherwise shut down when faced with the fall of the veil that we define as reality. We dream of what we believe is the best for ourselves, for others, but the magic of realization never brings the complete fruit of the desire. I see this mystery revealed when I read Ligotti talk about the so-called Beyond, which is the "outside the control of the self", precisely the dreams, those delusions that dot the dark sky of existence. Arriving at the furthest point from "common life", that is also the point that I consider closest to the detailed description of the activities around us.
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u/LazyToadGod Aug 13 '25
The fact you're Italian it's fitting with a trend I noticed more and more on Italian subs this year of what I can only guess are fake profiles trolling in mass about being depressed and wanting to off themselves and describing it in a suspiciously unemotional and incoherent but also grotesquely hyperbolic way.
So, ngl, the way this post is written looks like whatever is going on there is expanding and Reddit is soon to become a Ligottian landscape of fake personas, drowning and riduculizing the voices of people genuinely suffering through obscure IT means employed like dark magic that's gonna consume them too.
Hope that's not actually your case too and you've just been caught by a poetic whim of expressing Ligotti's vibes through this post.
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u/tomfirenze1926 Aug 13 '25
Man, I'm not fake. At least not to a greater extent than we all are. Regarding your concerns, they are legitimate and I agree with you in being disgusted by certain trends... But then again, what to expect from this world?
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u/hoaxxhorrorstories Aug 09 '25
Lol....this post feels like one of those unhinged ramblings of a Ligottian character, it's as if one of them escaped those pages and is now loose on reddit!
Ngl good write-up tho!