My Story Of Darkness

I am reading a good novel, Love in the Time of Cholera. I am only beginning it. But, it turned me to writing. There seems to be a common fear of death in the form of a fear of darkness, death as a darkness, in other words. The chief character of the novel so far, an old man in his eighties, tells that he fears death because of his fear he will not find God in that darkness. I remember my mother at that age telling me she was afraid. “Of what?” I asked her. She replied, “Of what everybody fears I suppose, death.”

In old age we begin to forget. We lose our learned skill of keeping up with life by treating everybody and everything we encounter in the way we treat a story as we read one. We begin to notice we are returning to a child like world we had forgotten. Now, my question is this: whether we comprehend by reading in accordance with the experiences we have had in life or is it the other way around? Does the practice of reading (and especially the experiences of being tested on the book) train us to live in a false way regarding the things of reality? To treat them by false ideals, I mean, by what we come to call by reading more and more, our good judgment? And, sound principles. What excites me here is really the notion we acquire our judgment falsely because it, reading, reveals a world we can seem to control. Therefore, we like it! So, could the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Bible actually be a metaphor for a book? Could a book held in one's hands be telling that a book is going to curse you soon in a terrible way and you will be cast out of paradise and left to earn your living by your wits? What a funny joke that would be! (All I know is there are two ways to read the scriptures and they are vastly different.)

What about this? I read a book to find out whether the author knows me rather than to read a book to find out whether the author can teach me what I do not know to help me understand how to control myself. In the first way, I am looking for a friend. In the second I am looking for a teacher who knows what is the matter with me who can straighten me out.

If I were a swan...I might ask why there is a darkness in the first place. And, why do I fear it? My friend urged me to meet the darkness now, while alive, and find out its nature. Asked me whether I thought it better to wait until death to find out. I was able then only to see: I want now to know! How about you?

(hmmm...notice the silent letter k is all that separates the words now from know.)

That leads me to suggest to you that you have encountered trouble when you have tried to meet the dark one, the one who does not speak your language, does not even think at all, never scolds and never asks questions; and that trouble has come from your trained mind which comes up with all manner of things for you to consider other than that. Correct? Why would you not want to meet the rest of you so much that you would interfere with an honest wish on your own part just to prevent it? You know, it takes a lot of attention and hard work to keep somebody from just sitting still for a little while. Must be a real threat, huh? A threat to what do you suppose? 

I met the dark void and knew it had been banished by my own decision to engage in selfish struggles to earn my living here by my wits; banished to a dungeon in the soul of me where it had remained until I found it and asked what it was doing there and would it like to be my friend. It had been waiting is what it made me to understand.

For what?

For you. What took you so long? 

That is my story of darkness.