Darkness is the opposite of light, but it is more than an absence. Darkness is a force in our universe. It causes distress and pain. It destroys all, eventually. Even so, darkness is not the same as evil. Darkness is a part of life and a part of you.
To be precise, darkness is the realm that’s unreached by knowledge, structure, and harmony. Where confusion, struggle, and conflict happen. This is also known as chaos. The word may evoke “pandemonium” but it comes from old Greek meaning “vast, formless void.” It’s closer to the atonal warmup of the strings in the orchestra, than the clatter of a knocked over drum.
Chaos is distinguished from order, the climb of every plant toward sunlight. It is the civilizations-long process of sensemaking the Earth. All the meta we make to sustain human activity. Order is challenged by chaos. Humans need only imagine chaos and we run to our fires, wielding the light like a sword. We arm ourselves with structure, process, laws, little doorbell cameras, p…
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