As adults, an incredibly vague term in itself, most of us still fear darkness. It isn't the possibility of what may exist, even fleetingly, where we can discern formations. It isn't the projections of our imaginations, which are molded anyway by others' stories and suggestions. It's the absence, the lack of concrete comfort. We associate the unfamiliar to that which we recognize. No one wants to lack knowledge. Conversely, no one wants to seek knowledge. Professions and careers comprise those who who can memorize and repeat.


We don't want to know what's not there. We never want to see zero or sense nothingness. Even as I sit and type this, it's in the confines of an office building, pretending I'm not doing what's expected. Why is it so impossible to accept what we don't know, or even the fact that we don't know? Every foreign concept forces us, by some compulsory panic to define it and identify it (evil, love, god). In doing so, in our panic, in attempting to create a language for the unknown and create a relatable and relayable notion, the rudiments of all communication, we continually limit ourselves. It's so easy to dismiss the unseen, to feign ignorance. All other animals do. (Again, this is an assumption on my behalf, based on inconclusive results of tests composed through humanized perception, not allowing for avenues of cognition yet undiscovered by us.) No animal knows about death, but continues to live daily. The excuse of animal instinct is employed, or at least implied, whenever convenient, but again in a panic, and again uniformly inaccurate. Our actions are committed out of fear, whether as a direct reaction or latent, simple or complex, physical or psychological.

Why is darkness viewed so unfavorably? We've instituted and tailored so many fables and legends to explain what we don't know. Just to push away the idea of nothingness. For all the glory attributed to science, so many attempted answers still elude us, because so much exists beyond what our feeble minds can comprehend. Miracles don't occur, just that which we have yet to acquire the ability to understand.

Reach into the darkness, leap into the void. It cannot be accessed by experiencing a variation on humanity, a different culture or a new religion. It's all still within the same environment. I don't suggest even slightly that there's any substance there to be found or cultivated. There awaits no reward, eternal or ephemeral. Explore the discomfort, the thinness, the idea of self-negation. Once inside the darkness, darkness ceases to exist in your perception. Once you embrace the otherness, the insoluble calculation, it dissolves. Once standing inside the darkness, you no longer exist. Inside long enough, your perception disintegrates. Once the understanding of nothingness envelopes your senses, you will understand that any action is its own reward and that so much that we pursue or regard is mere distraction. You'll know you're there when you can no longer see