Most people want to be nice and have a lovely happy, cheery
life. The fact is however that humans have a fearsome dark side. Within each of us there lives a devilish detail.

Everyone is selfish. We all want things our way even though we strategically accept compromise in order to negotiate more of what we want. Indeed even would be saints who try to apply generosity, grace and benevolence act to impress either themselves or their God with a view to ascending towards their version of heaven.

Everyone has the capacity for aggression and violence. The mass of mobs and murderers are not so different from our everyday souls. Even a hero of peace such as Mahatma Ghandi can be seen as allowing his rage to direct is action.

Indeed there are few of us, if any, who don’t find their frustration and fury giving way at least to flights of fantasy about power and
vengeance, cruel and sharp. That we don’t act on these thoughts is often about fear of the consequences be it failure in battle, punishment, or the internal shame of our ideals crushed.

Ignoring the darkness will not make it go away. The longer
you avert your eyes the more demanding it becomes. Hiding under the blankets has the bogeyman grow larger in your increasingly terrified mind as it leaks in through the cracks like a poisonous mist.

Seeing the depths of your darkness breaks the false boundary
between black and white. The truth sets you free to think with clarity.  Facing it head on will help you act with courage.

The fact is that the darkness is part of our power. Without
it we risk living our lives in insipid ignominy like a bunch of sheep lining up at the slaughterhouse politely pretending all will work out well.

Love and hate run parallel, entirely separate from passive
and banal indifference. In the darkness of our hearts lives half our passion. Like angels with only one wing, without acknowledging our darkness we can never truly make the choice to fly straight towards the sun.

martin hunter jones