To be able to stand in the
light, we must also be willing to stand in the darkness.
It is always there. In the
dark corners. Waiting to be brought out into the light.
The things that we would
do to survive. We do not address
directly… terrible things that we would never admit to ourselves, much less to
others, but we would still do them. Afterwards, a curious amnesia overtakes us. We hide these things, denying them as
nausea begins to overtake us. “I could never do something like that.” We find
comfort, even as superficial as it is, in those words. In that lie we can get
up every morning, have our coffee and go out into the world of others who share
the same lie.
The lie that lets us sleep
at night
She killed her children –
for a man. How could a mother do that? We ALL know how she might do that. But
not in the light of day will we dare to even allow our minds to whisper such
things. If we say them, they are real. And they are not. They are not real for
us. We would not do such things as
this. Never. Never until we’ve done
them and we are on the other side, looking up out of the abyss – out of the
darkness. Not until then do we truly know ourselves and the nature of survival
and the delicate threads of convention that keep us from the edge.
But once seen it can never
be un-seen. The some-assembly-required bicycle that fit so neatly into that
box. Now that it’s out, it has become too big to go back into the box. Or has
the box become too small?
In the light of madness I
look upon the thing. I can no longer deny that it exists; that it lives within
me and will go about its ghastly business; even as I brush my teeth, drive to
school, do the grocery shopping. Beneath the solace of my consciousness it goes
about doing what it has been designed to do – keep me alive. Not protect me. I
use denial for that. I can no longer tell myself “I would never do that.”
I let him die so that I
could maintain the precarious balance that is my life. I denied the immediacy –
I told myself it would wait, there’s still time. When I have this under
control, I can take care of him. Unbearable truth be told, I knew better. The
human gift of denial. The animal world knows, understands, forgives me, wonders
what the fuss is about and goes on about the day. They do not, nor have they
ever denied their nature. They may not bring it up in polite company (or
perhaps it is regular cocktail party conversation) but they know and they are
at peace with what they are. They are what they are. We are what we admit. We
are what we devise, what we dream up, what we tell ourselves and others. We are
“good people”, we could – would never commit
the atrocities some others commit. Those
people are sick, twisted – they must have been abused as children.
We assign familiar but
distant circumstances. We design our separateness, yet the edges and boundaries
we have so carefully created are beginning to bleed. We are they. They are us.
In the light of madness I
see.
Better not look too long…
