this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2024
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Why is it in popular imagining, that ghosts are {MOSTLY} depicted as miserable lonely sad folks that are stuck to the places they've died in? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Can't they discover the world beyond? Weren't they humans; don't they have the mind to move on and focus on something else, since trauma and grief will run its course, sooner or later, and not just haunt the living?

If I were a ghost, I'd be tired of acting like one... even if I was murdered or otherwise died untimely

With the exception of Casper the Ghost, I don't think I've seen the alternative take on it

This presupposes ghosts do exist, though I believe ye skeptics would tell me no, which, alright, you win the argument

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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I like this. Just a couple of additions, for the purpose of trying to improve on this lore.

First, Native Americans do have ghosts too (see https://allthatsinteresting.com/native-american-ghost-stories for instance).

If "ghosts" are just the embers of a particularly strong emotion that burned in a particular place, I suggest that "seeing" the ghost depends on being able to tune-in to that emotion and on having the cultural tools to interpret it and personify it.

So I might experience some faint, weird feeling going through a field where a battle between Native American tribes once happened but, as a white person imbued with a specific culture, I would not be able to recognize that particular mix of feelings and "see" that ghost. But a Native American might.

And if a big department store is built on top of that field, it would make it harder to both tune in to that particular faint feeling (among the confusion of so many other feelings) and to personify it as an old Navajo warrior, which would not make sense to us in that place