DS3.5's existential phase continues. Today he was talking to me about how nothing is really something because, if we can conceptualize something, it must exist in some way as embodied through us. He seems nonplussed by the concept of absolute nothingness and seems to be doing experiments to compare relative and absolute nothing.

These thought experiments take some interesting and disturbing turns, but my impression is that he is testing the placement of various scenarios along a shock/horror continuum. When he is emotionally overloaded or is quite displeased that he isn't getting his way, he often talks about death (usually his own because, as he reasons, if he didn't exist, his current suffering also wouldn't exist.) Today he seemed particularly pleased to have come up with what he thinks is the ultimate bad scenario for me: me being forced to kill him, then being required to live a time in his absence with my guilt, followed by my own death. Thankfully we were at home when DS, displeased at not getting his way, loudly compelled me to kill him repeatedly, complete with brief pauses in pathos to check my reaction. My dispassionate, "No, I'm not going to kill you or allow myself to be killed," would probably have been met by raised eyebrows in public.

DS is not a child for faint-hearted parents, and I would be terribly unfulfilled with a less, shall we say, experimental child. Life is always interesting here. smile

What is to give light must endure burning.