I think climate change and the extreme weather it causes are the closest we have to eldritch horrors. The impending doom and helplessness of a hurricane or wildfire terrify me. There is literally nothing in my power that I can do to prevent it from happening and there is little I can do to ensure my survival if it gets really bad. I think of storms as these collosal titans tearing through everything we have built and destroying lives without even the knowledge that we exist.
That’s just regular fear and anxiety. We know what’s happening and why. We understand that in theory it can be stopped and with the power of friendship we can change our outcome.
Cosmos horror is something happening beyond our understanding. Beyond our ability to understand. Like the ant that has a flash of human sentience and experience, seeing the world change due to their decisions and our existence utterly meaningless to them - only to lose that capability but not the memory of what they witnessed. To the ant they saw the answers to so many questions but those answers created more questions and now they will never have closure or understanding.
They will never again be able to know. They are instead cursed with the knowledge that there are bigger things out there and they can change the world without caring about ants at all. The world outside them moves on uncaring. And at any moment it can change and no one would be able to do a thing.
There is a reason a said close to but also a lot of the examples given in the original post are things that can be understood or explained but have an outsized affect on our lives that can’t be fully quantized. Natural disasters can be explained and described but experiencing them is completely different. I have been through a few hurricanes and nothing has made me feel more dwarfed. I am entirely at the whim of nature’s mercy. There’s nothing in this world that is more stunningly beautiful and utterly humanizing. It isn’t exactly eldritch horror but I think the perspective shift from normal life to feeling like a mouse dancing around the pounding feet of an elephant.
Edit: also I don’t humans are capable of grasping climate change that well
I think this is overly literal and simplistic. Sure a person can understand on paper what causes a cyclone or flood. But being in one is an experience completely outside of usual human norms. I would describe the power of a big cyclone or tsunami as “incomprehensible” in precisely the way that a cosmic entity wiping out a city would be; you can read about how many miles per hour the winds are in a cyclone but you don’t really understand what the reality of that kind of force is and just how insignificant you are in the face of it.
I think climate change and the extreme weather it causes are the closest we have to eldritch horrors. The impending doom and helplessness of a hurricane or wildfire terrify me. There is literally nothing in my power that I can do to prevent it from happening and there is little I can do to ensure my survival if it gets really bad. I think of storms as these collosal titans tearing through everything we have built and destroying lives without even the knowledge that we exist.
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That’s just regular fear and anxiety. We know what’s happening and why. We understand that in theory it can be stopped and with the power of friendship we can change our outcome.
Cosmos horror is something happening beyond our understanding. Beyond our ability to understand. Like the ant that has a flash of human sentience and experience, seeing the world change due to their decisions and our existence utterly meaningless to them - only to lose that capability but not the memory of what they witnessed. To the ant they saw the answers to so many questions but those answers created more questions and now they will never have closure or understanding.
They will never again be able to know. They are instead cursed with the knowledge that there are bigger things out there and they can change the world without caring about ants at all. The world outside them moves on uncaring. And at any moment it can change and no one would be able to do a thing.
There is a reason a said close to but also a lot of the examples given in the original post are things that can be understood or explained but have an outsized affect on our lives that can’t be fully quantized. Natural disasters can be explained and described but experiencing them is completely different. I have been through a few hurricanes and nothing has made me feel more dwarfed. I am entirely at the whim of nature’s mercy. There’s nothing in this world that is more stunningly beautiful and utterly humanizing. It isn’t exactly eldritch horror but I think the perspective shift from normal life to feeling like a mouse dancing around the pounding feet of an elephant.
Edit: also I don’t humans are capable of grasping climate change that well
I think this is overly literal and simplistic. Sure a person can understand on paper what causes a cyclone or flood. But being in one is an experience completely outside of usual human norms. I would describe the power of a big cyclone or tsunami as “incomprehensible” in precisely the way that a cosmic entity wiping out a city would be; you can read about how many miles per hour the winds are in a cyclone but you don’t really understand what the reality of that kind of force is and just how insignificant you are in the face of it.