I was inspired to write this article by an article I read tonight, “Why the Perception of Evil Is Considered Wrong by the Masses”, posted on January 18th. Despite the fact that it was so badly written, I was able to get some points out of it, and instead of responding to it, the issue seems to me to be large enough to warrant its own article, partially a response, partially my own ramblings on the thoughts, but certainly a discussion that does touch each of us.
Perhaps not in the larger community of the human race, but certainly in the factions known as the darker beings, there is a distinction between light and dark existence. For the sake of argument here, yes, there are those who are truly evil, wish others harm, and actually perpetrate such harm. Let’s set those poeple on the side for a second…
From the people we have left, let’s separate them into the light and the dark. There’s a lot of ways to break down the differences between these two. (I would not normally speak for more than myself, but I have learned in my time here at darksites, that I am not alone in the ways that I think.)
Visually, the light people like to live with colors that make the rest of us want to hurl: pink and baby blue and beige as opposed to black and red and grey and yes even touches of white here and there, just for contrast. (Yes, I am trying to remain as general as possible. I personally like green, but the darker shades, not those eyesore pastels and other horrid concoctions that just destroy the color of life itself. So I remain consistent, even if I stray on the pallet…)
Mentally, the people in the light do a lot of hiding, skeletons in the closet and so forth. Heaven forbid that community, country and god should find out the little nasties in the sock drawer, or the dirty deeds buried between the lines in the memos at the office, or the secrets hidden in the DNA of family members. Though there may be scars that take the shape of mental quirks, mood swings, and depressions, those in the dark are more comfortable with themselves, they feel less a sense of shame (once they have gotten past the point of transformation into adults), they care less what the society around them thinks of them. And in the long run they become more honest with each other about who they are.
Individualism. Well, for those in the light, the lack of community, the lack of continuity of thought and action from one to another represents chaos. In the darkness we realize that existence is chaos, and there is no getting around it. But even in chaos, we see patterns; maybe not THE pattern, but A pattern. We see the chemical reaction that rises out of the chaos and becomes a trend, a goal oriented path. We may have arrived at the ways we think, the observances we have made and conclusions we have reached, as individuals, but when we come across others who think the same way, we are still individuals who may have some slight difference of opinion on this or that, but on the whole we have lost the isolated part of ourselves — the part that makes us the kind of different that sets us apart, the part that makes us lonely. This is actually a good thing, because every living creature on this planet needs some kind of reassurance that he/she/it is not just a chaotic part of a dream, is not something that fell off a peach tree and got called a human instead, is not such a random ingredient in this life as to be useless. Proof? Who doesn’t get excited when for the first time they find that someone else actually has the same ideas, and so has someone to talk with? Look around, this site is full of young people who make that discovery every day.
Ok, dark people start out as young dark people. The question that comes to mind is: Why are the young people so dark? Remember those evil people we set on the side? Let’s bring them back out here now. Who are they? There’s evil parents, there’s evil step-parents, there’s evil bullies at school, there’s evil teachers, there’s evil on the news in the form of murderers and rapists and scam artists, there’s evil rulers of countries, there’s controversy and contradiction in the teachings of so-called good and moral leaders…. you get the idea. Is it any wonder that more and more people are growing up confused and disillusioned? Is it any wonder that they grow up questioning everything around them, feeling that life is not worth living because nothing their senses tell them is of any trust value? All the things that they are taught are good for them have become lies for them, and where do they turn? To an ideology that has become labeled as “The Darkside”. They do not wish to blindly follow in the steps that have been laid out for them by what they see as betrayors of their lives. They see things that the others around them, the what-you-could-call Stepford kids around them, do not. These Stepford kids blindly and deafly accept and embrace the lifestyle they have been brought up in; they will go on to perpetuate such a lifestyle because they have not had influences which stop their brain functions in their tracks and say “Something is wrong with this picture.”
So those kids who reject the Stepford culture turn to a different thoughtwave; they reject and are rejectd by their parents and peers; and to reinforce their stance, they dress differently. They turn to almost any deed and theory that is the exact opposite from what is expected of them. They become outcast, until they find others like themselves who, in their isolationism, they did not think existed. These loners believed they were unique, possibly insane and maybe starting to believe they were possessed or somehow demented, a belief probably encouraged by the Stepford identity that surrounded them.
So, now the dark, rather than being a scary unacceptable thing, actually becomes a safe haven; they have found a different place, a different society with a different way of thinking. And they find some semblance of happiness in their new lives and their new friends, and in turn, this becomes their light.
Granted, my tale has been severley glossed over, a skimming along the surface of the subject at every turn, for the sake of space. But the bottom line is, Darkness is not necessarily Evil. Evil is an entirely different subject, and the two should not be confused.
End of lecture for today…