My Imp of the Perverse

I started out as an English major when i began university - mostly because i didn't know what i wanted to do, but i knew i liked, and was good at, English. As a result, i've read quite a range of works and sadly, not many stuck with me once the class ended.

My favourite lower division classes however, were my American Lit classes. I don't think i read anything that i didn't like and both professors were wonderful and engaging instructors who made you want to learn understand, whose passion radiated through their lectures and left lasting impressions on my undergraduate mind.

One of my favourite short stories is Edgar Allan Poe's "The Imp of the Perverse." It comments on people's self-destructive behaviours, their "peversity" as it were, and how we crave to do wrong simply because we can and it's an option.

We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss—we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink away from the danger. Unaccountably we remain... it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bone with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height... for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it.

I sometimes feel this self-destructive desire on my commute home when i cross through the tunnel in the counter-flow lane.

The counter-flow lane used to terrify me. i hated how close my vehicle would be to oncoming traffic. I hated how you could feel the rush of the other vehicles passing you, that all it would take is one person to turn their steering wheel slightly the wrong way and it would be disaster. I avoided it at all costs, always making sure that i took one of the regular lanes.

Then i realized the counter-flow lane moved faster and suddenly, getting home sooner became more important than my fear.

but then a strange thing occurred....i began to imagine steering myself into oncoming traffic. Every time i go through the tunnel, i now think about my wheel slipping and careening head first into a semi truck or a yaris. would i die instantly? would regret wash over me as soon as i did it - would there be time for that? this inexplicable desire, not to end my life - no i'm not suicidal, but to do what i know i shouldn't and what no rational person would do is intoxicating.

i don't consider this my imp of the perverse coercing me to act against my better judgement, i feel like i'm too aware of it to blame it a mythical being. i think where my imp prefers to perverse my life is when it comes to dating.

i choose dating situations that i know have no future because it's easier. i go in expecting it to fail and when it does i can handle the disappointment, i can shrug it off and i can move on to my next victim. the only casualty? my calloused heart as it grows tougher and tougher with each shot of novocaine taking away all feeling as i walk into each new date colder and more distant than the last, leaving pieces of other hearts trailing behind me like a bleeding yellow brick road of buried hopes.

a brain, courage and a heart certainly don't await me at the end of this path. just a pack of flying monkeys coercing me into doing what i know is not good for me.