On the Call of the Void

When you hear it, tip your hat and walk away.

On my first day hiking through the most remote area in Iceland, I heard the call of the void.

I'd taken a ferry to one of the many fjord-fingers of Iceland's left hand, the uninhabited Hornstrandir Nature Reserve. I got an early start and hiked 7 miles to the campsite. By 2:30, I'd pitched my tent near the water, at the foot of a flat-top mountain. And with so much time left in the day, I opted for an additional out-and-back hike that I'd marked on my map. By 3:00, I'd set off on what would be an 8-mile, five-hour round-trip with a 1,300-foot (400-meter) elevation gain. My destination was an abandoned American radar station, which stood at the far edge of the winding plateau. The trail was deceptively long. After a series of steep and narrow switchbacks and hours of horizontal hiking on the rocky tabletop, I made it to the base. And, like most difficult things, it was worth it.

The old radar station was perched on a cliff, above a dense layer of clouds. Creeping up from the valley like a rising tide, those clouds turned the plateau into a floating peninsula. I walked through the base, then around the perimeter, then closer to the far edge of the cliff.

I stood beside a small snow-melt stream that ran over the edge without a sound, then traced it until I was a few feet from falling. I focused on my footing, bent my knees, and leaned forward. I couldn't see what lay below for the dense fog that filled the valley. Standing there, peering into the open mouth of death, I heard the call of the void. I didn't consider jumping, but I thought about the fact that I could jump. I thought about what falling would feel like. White gulls dropped from the cliff and banked around the corner, and I reminded myself that I can't fly.

June 30th, 2022: At the abandoned Látrar Air Station, 1,300 feet above a veiled sea in Hornstrandir Nature Reserve — see the exact location of this picture on Google Maps.

How do you feel when you're one step away from a thousand-foot drop? Do you fear death? Or do you daydream about the freedom of free fall?

When I'm in high places, I often experience "the call of the void," which is a well-documented psychological experience (also called the "high place phenomenon"). In high places, I have this "What if?" series of thoughts about jumping, but it is an entirely different experience than suicidal ideation. The leading study on the high place phenomenon is aptly titled "An urge to jump affirms the urge to live." In it, Jennifer Hames and her colleagues at Florida State demonstrate that the high place phenomenon is common and not exclusive to individuals with severe depression. For many, like me, the call of the void is life-affirming, not life-denying:

Experiencing this phenomenon may have the counterintuitive effect of affirming one's will to live.^¹

The call of the void is a survival instinct, but we mistake it for the urge to jump. In high places, we think, "Why am I so close to the edge? Move back, you maniac!" The call of the void is a jolt of awareness, where we realize that we could fall. It is not the realization that we want to jump. This is the misconception debunked by the Florida State study. Rather than indicating a suicidal urge, the call of the void is an expression of our desire to live.

There are two powerful effects of this experience: 1) you're reminded of your mortality and 2) you manifest your freedom. After drawing you closer to the edge, the call of the void prompts an uncomfortable but important question: "I want to live, right?" Your answer, "Yes!", is why you step back from the edge. You hear the call of the void, remember that you will die, and then freely choose to live.

I stood for a while at the edge of that cliff, listening to the call of the void. I watched the birds brush against their cloud-canvas and remembered that I will die. When I stepped away from the edge, I took off my hat and tipped it toward the fog-filled valley, like a married man from the 1800s declining an offer from a lady of the night: "You're beautiful and enigmatic, even awe-inspiring, but I'm in love with life and will continue living."

Springboard:

"An urge to jump affirms the urge to live." What does that mean to you? Do you agree? Is there something important about having the freedom to do things that we would never want to do?

Thank you to

Michael Dean

and

Yehudis Milchtein

for offering indispensable feedback on drafts of this piece.

1. "An urge to jump affirms the urge to live: An empirical examination of the high place phenomenon," Journal of Affective Disorders