I retain, however, my enthusiasm for fiction that expresses this view, fiction that is, like the essay and monograph mentioned above, itself a form of sublimation. I still regard the pessimistic view of existence as accurate I just don't find it very interesting. As time has passed, I've found my interest in sublimation limited, and moved on to distraction, amusing myself with entertainments and getting caught up in the business of daily life. I first encountered this framework in an early draft version of Thomas Ligotti's monograph The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, which transformed my own mechanism from anchoring (constructing the illusion that certain principles transcend or defy the horror of existence) to sublimation (acknowledging that horror but using the knowledge of its existence as a source of action and consolation). In his essay "The Last Messiah," Peter Wessel Zapffe identifies four mechanisms by which human beings avoid dwelling on the inherently tragic nature of human life: isolation, anchoring, distraction, and sublimation.
Thomas Ligotti, "The Mystics of Muelenburg"
"Where I live is nightmare, thus a certain nonchalance."
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