Dead Space
Jonathan Lin
Issue date: 4/20/05 Section: features
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Versus Magazine Online [Image based format]
A tiny fraction of the air human beings breathe in never reaches the endmost sacs to make exchanges with blood. It flows in as far as possible, behind the front portion of air that initially swaps oxygen for carbon dioxide. When you exhale, the unused air leaves your body first: its composition unaltered, its existence of marginal utility. During the short time it is inside your body, this air inhabits a region of the lungs called anatomic dead space.
Existential dead space is similarly the filler of life, between highs and lows. It is not getting a driver's license, a first kiss, or turning eighteen and receiving a car. It is not the deaths of loved ones, marriages, or oneself. Dead space is instead a baseline level of existence whose presence is ignored. It is life stripped of big things. It is composed of quiet moments that seem to fit no larger dramatic structure, where boredom leads to checking friends' Away Messages.
It is not kind to the impatient, especially when nothing exciting happens for long periods of time. In such cases these people will scrape through, making minimal effort to engage their surroundings. Some, those who gauge the value of life by what they receive, get frustrated. "Okay. Okay. I'll exist. What's in it for me?" They seek highs only - a party every night, a general "loudness" in life, and more excitement than you can modulate the position of a piece of wood at. To them, quiet periods are torture devices given manifestation in space and time.
However, linking happiness with the artificial flavorings of existence seems unwise, like a 5 year-old eating candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Parties are good. They can be fun. Yet they are not the only source of happiness in the universe. It is good to keep in mind that life extends past the "exciting" pockets of our experience. Dead space seems the common mode of existence - learning to enjoy it, improve it, and make it as comfortable as a Hilton after a Saharan trek, is not a waste of time.
Think of life as an electronic heart monitor. Instead of focusing on short, punctuated peaks in happiness, one should aim to increase general quality of life, the comfortable hum of the everyday. Worthy moments are easily tuned out if they lack immediacy, if they don't fit into the routine of "This is what I'm doing right now." A lack of appreciation for the exquisite details that do not draw attention to themselves takes hold. I could mentally construct my world around Thursdays because of a really good lab (suspend belief), and two o'clock on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays if I joyfully anticipate passing by a girl going from Sarratt towards Olin (an event invoking freshman year nostalgia). In doing this, I would unconsciously deem the rest of my life nondescript.