Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Ghosts? What a Haunting Question!

Today’s question is: Have you ever seen a ghost? Do you believe in ghosts? Why or why not?

Ahem! Glad I am not asked to provide an infographic on this. I wouldn’t know where to find a ghost.

My answer is:
No, to the best of my knowledge, I haven’t seen a real “Boo!” ghost, and for the sake of my own mental safety, I take Confucius’s words to heart on the subject. Now, please don’t jump to conclusions; it wasn’t Confucius’s ghost who talked to me. I just read his sayings in a book. Anyhow, Confucius advised: “Respect ghosts and gods, but keep away from them.” This is one heck of a good warning I am going to honor for the rest of my life, as I am taking no chances.

Anyhow, the Chinese are a wild bunch, as they have a Ghost Festival or rather a Hungry Ghost Festival, called Yu Lan each year. Something like our Halloween, I guess. On Halloween, our kids are hungry for candy; on Yu LAn, Chinese ghosts are hungry. Imagine trying to feed those ghosts!

Coming back to me, even though I deny spotting ghosts anywhere in my vicinity, a few telepathic occurrences have happened to yours truly. Close enough, I should say; nevertheless, I can explain some of those experiences as brain functions or rather malfunctions. Yet, the others that step into the precognitive range have no explanation at all. Even so, let’s not make too much of my tiny experiences for now, since I am a big chicken, still afraid of the dark at my advanced age, and I have no intention of meeting the unknown at this juncture in my life.

I sense there is something out there, however, something surrounding the ghost idea, but with the minimal knowledge I have on the subject at this point, I can’t deny or accept it, since existence of ghosts is only claimed to be true by those who bust ghosts or declare to know them personally in the murky area of a dubious expertise, which I suspect, is up for grabs by anyone.

Where imaginary ghosts are concerned, the nicer ones are in my stories or in the stories I read. My favorite ghost of all time is Casper the Friendly Ghost, since I watched its reruns with my kids, once upon a dinosaur time. In my opinion, that is what a ghost should be: Casper-like, confined inside a book, the screen, or the TV, and far, far away from me.