A Spark in the Darkness

I often sit and ponder why it is that we fear the darkness. What is it that causes us to be afraid of the unknown? Is it that we've been conditioned to believe there are razor-sharp-teethed, steel-ripping-clawed and merciless monsters who inhabit the cold and vastness of what we can't perceive? Or is it that we're afraid of what the darkness truly represents— nothingness.

We, as humans and individuals, are wired to be something. We're wired to want to be something. Hell, ever since we were kids... 8-year olds, we desire to be heroes who rescue the beautiful princess from the fire breathing dragon (see what I did there?), and unfortunately that is the unobtainable something. It's the something we should strive to be, but should understand that the "golden armored, sword wielding, damsel in distress saving" something is an archetype. And that's okay.

It gives us perspective, and our first taste of drive to be better than we were yesterday.

That unobtainable something— that symbol of peak grandeur... it's a spark in the darkness; a guiding light for each of us to find our own something. Whether that something is being a police officer who helps keep the streets safe, a teacher who truly wants to give unto the next generation the knowledge of the previous, a lawyer fighting for the rights of those who can't themselves, or a mother/father that shows and inspires their children to be better than they were.

It's too often, though, that people are easily defeated by construing what the archetype is meant for. They (unfortunately) see it as something they "have to" achieve, and when they leap with everything they have to become that "fearless knight who slays the unslayable," they fall. And that fall is one of the worst failures a growing individual who was sure they'd be something could ever face. A failure that smothers their spark. A failure that leaves them broken, and wandering the darkness terrified they're destined to waste their life away.

"You either fight, or perish," and that is what the darkness beats into everyone who's tried and failed. It separates the men from the boys, and weeds out the weak like nothing else.

But behind every chestplate is the soul of a somebody who fought to be something.

The darkness shows us to be something more than a cookie cutter cog in the machine. So find your spark and become something; be that spark for someone else, and show the world that 8-year old who dreamed of being somebody can be more than the unobtainable— a flame that changes the world.