looking into the abyss

April 1, 2006

Recently, an old friend who I see a couple times a year and who had a stroke not too long ago, from which he recovered, asked me if I had ever "looked into the abyss." He was referring to a situation when a traumatic experience forces a person to confront their own mortality and is changed as a result. The question caught me somewhat off guard, and I didn't have a good answer at the time. It was the first time anyone had ever asked me that question, and I really never had occasion to apply that sort of imagery to myself.

Afterward, I heard this expression used by others in several different contexts. US government officials used this expression when commenting on recent events in Iraq. They used it to describe how Shiite and Sunni muslins reacted to recent sectarian violence. “They looked into the abyss of civil war and decided not to go there.”  I’ve heard television pundits use the expression in a variety of ways, not all of which I thought made much sense. And when I Googled the expression on the Internet out of curiosity, I discovered it was the title of numerous books and articles on a wide variety of subjects.

I thought long and hard about the question my friend had asked me. He's a very intelligent and perceptive individual and someone I admire and respect. A serious question deserved a serious answer. Certainly, I've had my share of traumatic experiences, of which my friend is well aware.  Strange he would ask me that question, I thought afterward. It puzzled me. Had I ever really looked into the abyss? And if I had, how had it changed me? On reflection, I decided there had been two times in my life when I believe I had looked into the abyss and had changed as a result.

The first was as a young second lieutenant in 1967 with the 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam. I killed and saw people killed and, for a time, was convinced that inevitably I would be killed. You can't watch people around you die violently too many times before you come to the conclusion that sooner or later it's going to be your turn. Of course the experience changed me.  It didn't make me a different person, just a more thoughtful one with a greater appreciation of life. Certainly it helped me mature faster, and it gave me a more serious perspective on life. 

Others in Vietnam who experienced what I did, or had even more horrific experiences, no doubt looked into the abyss and were changed, but not necessarily in the same way. My instincts and own experiences tell me that how an experience like that changes you depends more on who and what you were going into the experience than on the nature of the experience itself.

The second experience where I looked into the abyss was when I had end-stage renal disease and was medically retired from the US Army in 1984. After a year on kidney dialysis I had a kidney transplant. During that year I watched other individuals in my situation who weren't as fortunate as I was. Some of them died from the complications of their disease. It was a sobering experience. Again I was same person afterward as before, but every day since my transplant in 1985 I have lived with the fact that I can’t take the future for granted and that had I been born in any other previous time I would already be dead. 

Again, others who shared my experience were not all affected the same way. Some handled the situation well, others didn't. And again, I believe that who and what you are going into an experience like this is the principal determinant of who and what you will be coming out of it. I have no scientific data to support this claim, but I believe it.

So, after thinking about all this, I've decided that I had looked into the abyss, in the sense that my friend had asked the question. But if he was asking, had I become a different person, had it changed my fundamental beliefs? The answer is, not really.

By now, you've probably asked yourself if you have ever looked into the abyss and how did it change you. It's useful for everyone to ask themselves that question at some point. Certainly, anyone who has had occasion to look into the abyss and come away from the experience more enlightened, a better person, should consider himself or herself very lucky. Consider how many people look into the abyss and it’s the last thing they every see or it places them in a situation from which there is no return.

If, up to this point in your life, you have not had an opportunity to look into the abyss, don't be in a hurry to do so. Trust me, when that time comes, it won't be readily apparent that it won't be the last thing you ever see.