Darkness

[alchemy1]

When my last gf broke up with me I started thinking a lot about the subject of darkness (metophorical). The reason that she left me (or at least the reason she gave me) was that even though I was really nice and sweet on the outside, i had an inner darkness about me that she didn't like. Anyway, I started thinking about that "inner darkness" and the ways that It manifested itself in my personality and suroundings. At first, it did bother me a bit that someone I cared for left me because of that, but now, after giving it quite a bit of thought, I have a kind of philosophy about it.
First of all, I accept my darkness. You know, I guess it would be nice if the world was all sunshine and flowers, but it obviously isn't. I think that part of the problems that all human societies have faced can be attributed to, on some level, a refusal the accept the fact that things like evil, greed, violence, and hate DO exist inside inside us. Each of us has the potential for good or evil. Another way to think of it is that both God and The Devil reside not in Heaven or Hell, but inside us all and our decisions that we make can make our lives either Heaven or Hell. Where you run into a problem is when you have a person or a group of people that refuse to acknowledge one or the other. Everyone wants to believe that they have goodness inside of them, but no one seems to want to believe that they also have the potential for evil in them as well. Just like the Yin and Yang, dark and light are simply two sides of the same coin. To acknowledge one and ignore the other is absurd, and in fact, this thought process can be harmful to society. Before you can properly deal with anything, you must first acknowledge it's existance. For example, how sane would our world be if the majority of people refused to believe in murder (because it was an unpleasent subject)? How could that society possibly hope to deal with it? Insanity.
Anyhow, after you acknowledge that darkness does exist with in us, you can then deal with it/channel it/fight it...whatever works best for you. It is important that you DO deal with it. By doing so you, in effect, you give it a form. Once you have transformed it into something tangible, you can kind of trap it there (like a genie in a bottle). Personlly, I do this in several ways. I play really dark music (epic doom metal), I collect gargoyles and weapons, and have a love for horror movies. These things solidify darkness for me and therefore I can deal with it and have fun with it. If you do not do this, however. If you acknowledge it's existence, but refuse to deal with it or channel it in any way, the genie is out of the bottle. That is when this dark nature can potentially assert itself in harmful ways upon our society. This is why wanting to ban horror movies, dark music, Halloween, etc is a really bad idea. Which is more harmful to society? A person who goes to the movies or a concert to see horror or darkness and has fun with it/gets it out of their system, or a person who does really horrible things to people who has always been sheltered from things that are dark in nature (and therefore cannot recognize it)? Now granted, these are extreme examples, but the point is, better that our darkness be expressed in fantasy than reality.
Any thoughts?

 

[Celtic_Emperor]

I'm glad to see another matured attitude on the subject. Fundamentally, it boils down to just being able to control your emotions and vent them in a positive, contructive way not entertain the things that makes the problems worse.

Bottling them up is very unhealthy and often leads to problems later, most of which are psychological, but also physical and mental (stress and physical discomfort and change because of the pressure).

Its just the same as acknowledging you have a problem (example- substance abuse problem) and not denying it, and then doing what you can to help make it better. If its not something that can be cured, its definitely something that can be helped to make the day-to-day aspect of it more managable and easier to deal with.

Everyone has a darkside, but everyone has a light side as well. Theres a yearning for both in everyone, but which one you ultimately follow through on is the one you've accepted as a truth of what motivates you to exist. Nothing bad comes from being good, but more and more ugliness and misfortune comes from being bad. People who are good/happy often or most of the time are able to be so because they've figured it out for themselves.

People who stay troubled and do nothing about it tend to become ancy, irritable, bitter people. They realize their own failure but are not mature enough to admit it, and so they vent in any number of harmful, immature and childish ways.

Cosmically and spiritually people in your situation are setting themselves up for a trap over time, but what you've done is different. Spiritually they weaken further the deeper into dispair and sorrow that they get. These things are reflected in not just their peronalities and interests, but in their choice of colors and lifestyles, and, ultimately, their choices and decisions. They think they are in control but its only feeding the beast which has already taken up residence. This is something they allow to happen and so it goes on.

Further misfortunes await people who submit to these types of negative attitudes and entertain what ammounts to self-debauchery. The balance of karma and other such things are upset because you are not right spiritually as a being of light which we are all created as (unlike evil which is something that has to be introduced and infused) but do not necessarily live or end that way.

Alot of the time this is why bad things happen to good people. While they are good people as people, theres something not right with them spiritually. Its as if they have a curse or "bad luck". Its all a reflection of the inner workings of their psyche.

The only way to vanquish this foe and give yourself and your soul some peace of mind and well being is to first accept that its a problem in your life, and then to reprioritize your life and put more balanced, positive things into your life.

You are what you eat and what you think.

If you refuse to believe that theres anything wrong, the problem is fed and festers and will someday somehow vent itself in an unproductive ugly way, and other people could get hurt in any number of ways.

There are definitely right and wrong ways to deal with this, and just because someone feels like what they are doing is helping doesn't mean it is. Its most likely a desperate escape. And that is only momentary. It also doesn't mean that its enough or too little.

Just like making a soup, theres a dash of this, and sprinkle of that. If any one of these ingredients is missing the soup is not as it should be and that will be evident in the taste. So many people realize far too late that theres something wrong with their soup, and if they want it to taste better they've got to get the right ingredients.

"The Lord helps those who help themselves."

 

[nessonite1]

I think you're right on there, alchemy.
I know I had something wise and insightful to say but Ive got a terrible cold and it seems to be clogging my brain.

 

[morgandee]

goddammit, i thought this was gonna be about the band the darkness.

get your hands off of my woman, mothuh fuckaaaaa

 

[Ignatz]

Fellas (and Nessie), you've tapped into a Truth as old as civilization, though it is not often acknowledged. The Greeks understood and expressed it with the complementary gods Apollo and Dionysus, representing Light, Order and Reason with the first, and dark, riotous Passion with the second. Apollo should guide our lives, but if Dionysus is not given his due, all hell will break loose. (See "The Bacchae" by Euripides.) And Plato expressed the same thing when he divided the soul into three entities, a noble white steed, a violent black charger and the human charioteer holding the reins on both. And his point was that we should control both horses and steer a middle course, not cut either of them loose.
This seems to be, in part, what William Blake meant by Fearful Symmetry, illustrated by the poems in his "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience." In "The Tyger," he asks, "Did He who made the Lamb, make Thee?"
And Shakespeare asserts, "The web of life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues." The most famous literary example, of course, is Stevenson's little chiller about the good Dr. Jekyll, who was the composite of Mr. Hyde and his better self.
(See what lofty company you're keeping here in this little old Dionysian forum!) From your respective analyses, I have no fear that either of you thinks this theory justifies cruelty or violent crime. It just means that we all have a bit of the devil in us, and your ex, Alchemy, has some growing up to do.

 

[AphroditeRabbit]

I rather enjoyed The Bacchae...Oh to be a fly on the...tree...at his festival...

 

[alchemy1]

Awesome input everyone. Yeah, this was just something that I needed to get off my chest. You know, it's amazing how inwardly contemplative you get when someone you care about does something really crappy to you.
Any more thoughts on the subject?

 

[-Kunoke-]

Here's the way I thought of it.

If you think negitive thoughts, and say negitive things, then you end up living out your life in a negitive way.

Think of it like a game. If somebody who thinks they're all that starts yelling at all the others because they made a mistake that could cost them the win, that just diminishes the hope of the other players. It makes them think "He's right...I'm worthless and we're going to lose" or "She's right...I'm worthless and we're done for" You know, something to that effect. If that happens, then you probably will lose. Once you have no hope, there is no hope. But that's my thing since I play a lot of games. 🙂 If everyone thought positively and acted positively, there would be less hate in this world. This doesn't ONLY apply to games of course, I'm sure it can be used in many different situations.

Just my two cents.

 

[jj82277]

I think that there is a fine line between acknowledgement for irradication, and covetting.

to ig before the greeks, the garden of Eden represented man in his perfect form, Vlads infusion of Evil in the fall of man, and in the new testemant the statement, I am the light of the world. keep your eyes on me, you get the picture.

simple words, but encompassing of the discussion at hand. My personal oppinion of the state of man is more inherantly evil witht the ability to do good. Napoleon Hill did a great job articulating that the defined purpose of any human being, through aut-suggestion of the subconcious mind will eventually manifest itself in outward form. in English if you concentrate your thoughts mainly for good (keeping your eye on the light) then you will surely not fall into the abyss of darkness. or if you shy away that you will remain coveting darkness. all of our actions in life will fall under one of these two main catagories. watching a scary movie, or collecting weapons if your chosen chief aim and purpose is to simply observe, and or learn about different things, while still practicing sound judgement in a moral fashion, then you will just know a llot about horror flicks, and have cool swords. If on the other hand that you take these actions in the heart of covetting the dark themes within, and slowly allow yourself to model behavior then you will wind up like dohmer, bundy, etc.

I think that the matrix Trilogy got a little too carried away expressing the idea that we can choose to follow good or evil on our own. we will be perfect at neither, but the choice is still up to us.

sometimes i wonder what choices we all made to be in the place that we are now, instead of in more extreme forms of S&M or worse. when you think about it on a scale of 1-10, we would all probably grade out at about an 8 on the physical manifestation of sadistic behavior,

To Alchemy i pose a familiar question. In your manifesto, while i don't agree with it 100% i do think that it is heartfelt, and deeply a manifestation of your true philosophies in life to this point. My question is, how could you develop such strong feelings for someone who you did not discuss this with, and share whole heartedly? especially given the fact, that part of your inner darkness, as well as mine, would have been the desire to tie her up and sadistically tickle torture her. If she wasn't aware and totally in line with those basic principles that you live by, then really what caused these feelings that you had towards this person? you can't just drop back and throw a hail marry and get a beautiful long lasting relationship. you have to hand it to the tailback, eastablish a mentality, and create a balanced attack that will allow the two of you to fully learn aboiut each other in a timely fashion before you develop the warm fuzzies for a person that you are not really meant to be with. that's how you play big boy football, i mean date, damn i did it again. but if you don't share core beliefs, you are just setting yourself up to be unhappy, (and in the long run unhappy with half your stuff depending on what state you live in).

 

[-Kunoke-]

I think that there is a fine line between acknowledgement for irradication, and covetting.

to ig before the greeks, the garden of Eden represented man in his perfect form, Vlads infusion of Evil in the fall of man, and in the new testemant the statement, I am the light of the world. keep your eyes on me, you get the picture.

simple words, but encompassing of the discussion at hand. My personal oppinion of the state of man is more inherantly evil witht the ability to do good. Napoleon Hill did a great job articulating that the defined purpose of any human being, through aut-suggestion of the subconcious mind will eventually manifest itself in outward form. in English if you concentrate your thoughts mainly for good (keeping your eye on the light) then you will surely not fall into the abyss of darkness. or if you shy away that you will remain coveting darkness. all of our actions in life will fall under one of these two main catagories. watching a scary movie, or collecting weapons if your chosen chief aim and purpose is to simply observe, and or learn about different things, while still practicing sound judgement in a moral fashion, then you will just know a llot about horror flicks, and have cool swords. If on the other hand that you take these actions in the heart of covetting the dark themes within, and slowly allow yourself to model behavior then you will wind up like dohmer, bundy, etc.

I think that the matrix Trilogy got a little too carried away expressing the idea that we can choose to follow good or evil on our own. we will be perfect at neither, but the choice is still up to us.

sometimes i wonder what choices we all made to be in the place that we are now, instead of in more extreme forms of S&M or worse. when you think about it on a scale of 1-10, we would all probably grade out at about an 8 on the physical manifestation of sadistic behavior,

To Alchemy i pose a familiar question. In your manifesto, while i don't agree with it 100% i do think that it is heartfelt, and deeply a manifestation of your true philosophies in life to this point. My question is, how could you develop such strong feelings for someone who you did not discuss this with, and share whole heartedly? especially given the fact, that part of your inner darkness, as well as mine, would have been the desire to tie her up and sadistically tickle torture her. If she wasn't aware and totally in line with those basic principles that you live by, then really what caused these feelings that you had towards this person? you can't just drop back and throw a hail marry and get a beautiful long lasting relationship. you have to hand it to the tailback, eastablish a mentality, and create a balanced attack that will allow the two of you to fully learn aboiut each other in a timely fashion before you develop the warm fuzzies for a person that you are not really meant to be with. that's how you play big boy football, i mean date, damn i did it again. but if you don't share core beliefs, you are just setting yourself up to be unhappy, (and in the long run unhappy with half your stuff depending on what state you live in).

Words of wisdom. I like it. 🙂 I agree for the most part with that.

I know that I myself have no possibility of having a complete relationship without having a partner who would allow me to do such a thing as tie her up and tickle torture her. I require that, because as greedy as it may sound, I feel deprived if I'm not allowed to tickle on a regular basis. I need to be able to tickle her, and tickle her a lot. If I can't, it gets more and more on my mind until soon it's all I can think about. I don't want to live my life thinking of nothing but tickling. Don't get me wrong, I really love tickling, it's a major part of my foot fetish after all. It's just, if I think about nothing but sex (and this would be equivilent to that in this case) it wouldn't be very fun. I'm still learning to control myself in that matter....but it's hard sometimes. It may change when I get older, but right now, I have a desperate need to tickle a lot. It's a good thing I found my lee! 🙂 Ever since she became my lee, I've been getting less urges.

At any rate, tickling for me can be two different things. It CAN just be tickling between me and a friend, nothing sexual at all, OR it can be a gigantic turn on, and in the right situation, you could basically call it safe sex. For people like me, who need their fetish to be endulged during sex, tickling without the actual intercourse could count as safe sex. But that depends on the person I'm tickling.

But enough of my explaining myself. All that built off of a few sentances that jj posted? Maybe I do have too much spare time. Oh well.

 

[morgandee]

here are some words of the wise, and this is very philosophical

there were four men, each guided spiritually by one of the four elements (earth, wind, water, fire). the first one said, "i shall walk my own path on these grounds to the light." the second said, "let the gentle breeze be my guide to show me the way to the light." the third one said, "i shall settle comfortably in the sea and let the light find me in my bed." what did the fourth one say?








"holy shit, i'm on fire!"

 

[alchemy1]

To Alchemy i pose a familiar question. In your manifesto, while i don't agree with it 100% i do think that it is heartfelt, and deeply a manifestation of your true philosophies in life to this point. My question is, how could you develop such strong feelings for someone who you did not discuss this with, and share whole heartedly? especially given the fact, that part of your inner darkness, as well as mine, would have been the desire to tie her up and sadistically tickle torture her. If she wasn't aware and totally in line with those basic principles that you live by, then really what caused these feelings that you had towards this person? you can't just drop back and throw a hail marry and get a beautiful long lasting relationship. you have to hand it to the tailback, eastablish a mentality, and create a balanced attack that will allow the two of you to fully learn aboiut each other in a timely fashion before you develop the warm fuzzies for a person that you are not really meant to be with. that's how you play big boy football, i mean date, damn i did it again. but if you don't share core beliefs, you are just setting yourself up to be unhappy, (and in the long run unhappy with half your stuff depending on what state you live in).

Well, THAT is what is really confusing. I DID discuss this with her. We had a couple really deep introspective conversations about ourselves and our beliefs...so she was definately aware of them. We had agreed that it would not be a problem as long as we respected each others beliefs. She also knew about the tickling thing as well and was totally fine with it (she even liked it).
Also, I do not have to know everything about a person (nor do they have to know everything about me) to have feelings for them. There are certain things that are important that I like to be up-front with, but i'm not comfortable with a person knowing too much too quickly.

 

[jj82277]

I completely understand and agree. and i aplaud you for your openess to intimacy. The only reason that i asked is because a lot of times our feelins don't do what's best for us. there is a chemical in the brain called phenoletholemine (spelled completely wrong). and its basically the high that comes from love (large amounts of chocolate, tickling, etc.). The levels of pe that exist in the brain for the first two years of a relationship especially for us guys generally doesn't change no matter what the other person is really about, because in our subconcious all we still see is how good we feel when they smile, laugh, etc. that's why i always stress as much logical hought process as possible. that being said, i think that she just wasn't the one man.

but don't worry, their are plenty of ticklish girls out there that get all willy just at the thought of being around someone with that "inner darkness" that we all share. and she will love you for it. and a couple of other things too, but i don't want to get too graphic, we all have imaginations.

 

[XaviarRkR]

Any darkness that any of us might have is probably insignificant next to the light that any of us might have. Any problem that may arrise is probably that few people can see the light that each of us has to offer.