Life is bright and life is dark

 

We fear the dark, obviously

 

Fear of course distorts perception

 

We experience an urge to go where the fear is, where the darkness is

To pursue the truth

Where it’s most concealed

In the dark

 

You’re going to die,

You are not going to heaven

Perhaps you’re going to hell,

but that’s most likely on earth

But then you die, and likely that’s it

But life is bright too

Until it’s not

But ultimately we all die so that’s a relief

 

You don’t like those thoughts

They are too dark

But you know it’s true

So you explore the darkness in a way that’s palatable

Through dark art, dark humour, dark this and dark that

 

I previously wrote that darkness is a proxy for the unknown,

Which itself is conduit to life, since to live is to explore, to change, change not for the known (that’s no change), but for the unknown

But now I think it’s even more powerful

Darkness is a proxy for truth

That truth we refuse to face

 

The nihilistic truth

The truth about death

The truth of evil existing

In the world, and within you too

The death everywhere around you

An animal killing an animal

An animal starving and an animal freezing

For every short animal life 10 of its brothers dead

Bacteria and parasites and carrion crows leeching on other creatures

The aging and pathetic degeneration

Illness and sickness and rot and stench

 

The civilisational collapse

The institutional rot

The destruction of an ecosystem

The destruction of an entire planet

Cataclysms and plagues and meteors and humans

 

It’s not even really dark, it’s only real

There’s plenty beauty and love and life and “meaning”

It’s just fleeting and impermanent and intermingled with pain and struggle and pointlessness and decay and finally sweet death

 

In exploring this truth, even indirectly, is to experience cathartic relief

And liberation from the untruth, from the delusions

So dark is not just a cheap thrill

It’s a medium for full apprehension of reality