Dark. How dark can we go? Humans. Read the news. Every day. Dark. Very, very dark. Darker than you can imagine. How does that happen? What wakes up the demons inside of us?
We are all creatures of light and dark. There is a battle, a dance, a balancing act going on inside of us at all times. Think of the worst things, think of the best things. Humans are capable of both.
How does that little burbling infant in diapers end up on death row? Or on the battlefield committing atrocities? Playing games of dominance and submission? How does that little burbling baby become a bully, a terrorist, a sexual predator?
It's sort of like that cartoon, right? An angel on one shoulder, a devil on the other. Whispering in our ears. Those are the two extremes. We seem to be caught between the two at all times.
Are some of us more inclined to lean to the light, some to lean to the dark? Are we truly born one way or the other? Or are we pushed that way by the things we encounter in our lives? Nature or nurture?
Hard to know how it happens. Some of us lean to the light, even in the midst of the deepest darkness. Sort of seems naive, innocent, psychically inept. Innocently optimistic.
Some of us lean to the dark. So dark it points to a bleak, black, dead-end nihilism. I guess we are talking Evil. There is some deep existential battle going on in us. The Battle of Good & Evil.
It's a real battle. Probably good not to forget. I mean, we forget at our own peril. Lately I have been obsessed with Dylan's "Gospel Years," you know... "You Gotta Serve Somebody." Be forewarned Pilgrim.