In the Light of Madness

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…