I have always been extremely attracted to the dark. It has often been my sincere confidante, a patient friend and an untiring guide. It has showed me more paths than light has and a tete-a-tete with it has always been a pleasure. Light troubles me, its brightness, its apparent glow and its shallow cheers have never impressed me. Yes, I could well be a dark person. I want the day to get past quickly and wish for an eternal night, I cannot bear the vanishing of the dark for the coming of some light. I find it extremely difficult to forgo the beauty of the dark night even for the sweetness of slumber. The darkness lets us think in peace, it doesn’t meddle with us to make way for what others want of us, it doesn’t stop us from being who we are sans fear…the dark is beautiful.
But why is it so? I feel there is a certain truth in darkness which light dare not reveal. Though darkness evokes fear in most, I wonder why people often associate it with darkness being the reason for atrocities. Yes, darkness is often the setting but is it fair to call it the reason? I think that the dark reveals what the light hides. The people whom by day and in light are seen walking or sitting next to us, our co-passengers in a journey, people who smile at us, who shake hands with us and seem just like any one of us are the very people who against the clearer canvas of the dark are seen as thieves who rob your house, murderers who thrust daggers into you and rapists who like patient vultures peck at your flesh with sadist pleasure. And if you think it’s the dark that did it, well, think again. These are the very people whose pompous, painted apparitions we see by the day and feel secure, feel one with. Their tainted, blood thirsty hands or hearts that are so numb of emotions are well hidden in the light. Because light is bright, its cheerful and all that is all cheerful must in one way or the other forgo the truth to paint the rosiest picture possible. The people are not different in day and at night, just that the dark evokes from within us what is real, who we really are and lets us free to make our choice – and that is just the fact we hate about the dark. The dark questions our perception, it interrogates our conscience and brings forth our emotions, while light is busy elsewhere patting its cheeks red to please. Dark overpowers us and we hate being subordinates, we hate being known for who we are. Whereas, the light lets us dominate and be satiated. It gives us a chance to fake smiles and create gossip. Light is that banished child of darkness which can by no means return and thus makes itself known as the happier and more pleasant of the lot. It is confined to the castle built with slime and upon a hollow bubble of air. The dark is stern, it chooses to be hated than loved sans truth. Light hands us poppy to enter a trance which we take for truth, darkness hands us the elixir to realization.
Darkness cannot fake something to make it more pleasant. In darkness there no need of a cover, no need of an escape. The dark reveals all and our fear of the dark traces its origins in our fear of truth itself. It shows us our sense of inferiority, it reflects the extent of our hypocritical mind, our problems with who we are. We choose light over darkness because in light there is a scope to pretend, darkness presents no such temporary relief. Light is momentary, it can only lift the eternity of darkness for a short while but cannot persist. Thus, there is truth in darkness and there are lies in light.