Dark Versus Light

The battle within our minds

I’ve been wanting to write this piece for a while, although hesitated to do so, ironically out of fear that it would come across as unhinged, or incomprehensible; basically finding only an audience of one - your writer.

I thought about all the sources I could draw upon, such as whatever psychological, philosophical, and even spiritual research and writings that are out there. Yet that would dilute the message.

---

Mental health is not solely about conditions like schizophrenia, depression, or anxiety. It encompasses how we continually react to things, whether it be negatively, positively, neutrally, or otherwise. It largely determines motivation, contentment, love, or in the darkest times, the attachment to despair.

Granted, the subject of mental health is no longer taboo. It is encouraged for people to express their emotional states more openly, perhaps even to the point of creating mania itself.

Whereby, people go out of their way to identify with a condition, because of media messaging, or after someone else within their inner or extended circle is given a diagnosis, and subsequently starts taking pharmacological products, or having therapy.

If you have witnessed such a phenomena, you may have questioned it, as the person in question appeared to be absolutely fine, as you knew them. Then after the diagnosis, their personality changed, and they became unrecognisable.

Most, if not all humans, surely dwell on what they perceive to be their flaws, from time to time. If the dwelling turns into despair, the downward spiral consumes the individual, with fear feeding on self pity and loathing. Only the person suffering can pull themselves out of this vortex.

Having a support network of people who love them certainly helps, yet it can also reinforce being the victim. It all depends on how the individual reacts to advice, sympathy, and hard truths.

The world today is suffering from a sickness. A darkness that hungrily feeds on fear, confusion, despair, and hopelessness. This darkness twists the minds of men to focus on worst case scenarios. Crises. Whatever can go wrong will surely go wrong, seems to be the pervading, overarching narrative, from the bombardment of doom and gloom inflicted upon us.

Suffering is universal. That is the one thing we all have in common.

It is only in the past three years, that I have come to realise that darkness and evil are also teachers. Whatever assault on our dignity, our sovereignty, and our very spirit that we can endure, makes us into something new.

Some might feel beaten into submission and utterly powerless after such endurances. They may casually say, on the various topics of our gradual and collective enslavement:

Well, there’s nothing you can do really, is there? You just have to go along with it.

Hearing such a statement makes the heart sink. Despair takes hold, in which moment we can choose to agree and become despondent, or take another view.

Since 2020, I once found myself uttering something similar to a friend. A low point. They said to me:

I reject all of it. I focus on what I can control, and I accept what I cannot.

So simple. It changed my outlook on everything. I began to catch myself, consciously, whenever I felt baited, angry, sad, or hopeless. Observe the thought, let it dissipate and fade away.

This is not to mean, that I became robotic and unfeeling. Far from it. I chose how to react to how I felt about the latest doom-mongering on the news, or the fact that my latest hopes for family reunion had been dashed, again. I focused on being resilient and being present. Meditation - which I used to think was mumbo jumbo, surprised me.

I had been so caught up in being connected 24/7, obsessively consuming the fearporn, attaching to anger and hatred. The more I meditated, the more I learned not to attach to intrusive thoughts of despair; not to let anger rise. I realised that ego was driving so many negative emotions and reactions.

There was a realisation of self-destructive behaviour and addictions fueling and being fueled by the need for escapism from this hell. Yet, that behaviour is only self perpetuating.

Meditation enabled me to regain control. To be content with my thoughts, to better embrace conversation with friends and strangers alike, to thirst for knowledge and truth.

Quoting Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter (1883–1931), Khalil Gibran:

A man living outside the circle of delusion which imprisons most men has a question of everyone he meets, usually asked silently, ‘Can you get outside of yourself for even a split second to hear something you have never heard before?’ Those who learn to hear will enter a new world.

Where I live, I rarely see the faces of strangers anymore. They are mostly concealed from view. What I do see, fleetingly, is their eyes, when they occasionally look up. Their eyes are filled with confusion, loneliness, and loss.

Even if I do not know them personally, I sense that they are but a faint shadow of the human being that they once were before. For it is in these moments, that they are alone, when they no longer pretend to be ‘normal’ and ‘happy’ for the sake of appearances in front of their peers.

Humanity is being driven deeper and deeper into isolation. Lifestyles are devoid of physical contact, affection, and interactions. Dehumanisation by the day. In fact, this is being cheered on by and promoted by the media, by governments, which then filters down to companies, and ultimately the human beings that run them.

We are so busy proclaiming our virtue to care so much about our fellow human being, that we have become warped enough to believe that the only way of achieving this, is by no longer acting human. Avoiding a stranger’s gaze, no longer helping strangers, digitising more and more of our lives - outsourcing tasks and even conversations, to third party providers.

All the while, the battle inside the mind for the light versus the dark, swings like a pendulum.

Whilst we may wear many socially-situational-specific masks, we cannot escape our true nature, and our inner voice. When the mind is rested, through meditation, we can observe our reality more clearly and coherently. We realise that we are in control. We can curate our reality.

The cruelest irony borne out of the mental health bandwagon circus, championed by multi-national organisations and their workshops, is that we are soliciting guidance for and during a paradigm shift of our own creation and acceptance.

People are craving interaction and human contact - that is the solution for this global mental health crisis. Plain and simple. Yet, people are being encouraged to embrace contactless, remote, online lifestyles, whilst also being told to focus on their mental health!

I believe all the solutions to our collectively shared feelings of being lost, center around finding each other again. Ideologies and hypersensitive reactions have made us afraid to even converse with one another.

Children are only at the beginning of their journey in this life. Quoting Bruce Abramson via RealClear Wire:

…childhood is when we shape our beliefs and our tastes. Convince a generation that it’s fragile, off-balance, angry, victimized, and oppressed, and very few of its members will ever break out.

If we do not remember that we are not made of glass, that the human spirit can endure anything, then our youth will absorb all of the most terrible aspects of our current zeitgeist. They will forever fear their fellow human, children and adults alike. They will learn to obey, to conform, and absolutely under no circumstances dissent, or express a non consensus idea.

The dark will wholly consume them within the battle of their minds. Duality with the light will be but a flicker, progressively extinguished with each passing anti-human trait and behaviour that we are teaching them is right.

We should be teaching them how to be human, should we not?

One final quote from Khalil Gibran:

Your children….. are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.

I shall leave you with a beautiful song from a talented musician that speaks to the hearts and souls of anyone who has ever struggled with their mental health.

---

Nicholas Creed is a Bangkok-based journalistic dissident. If you liked this content and wish to support the work, buy him a coffee or consider a crypto donation:

BTC: 39CbWqWXYzqXshzNbosbtBDf1YoJfhsr45

XMR:86nUmkrzChrCS4v5j6g3dtWy6RZAAazfCPsC8QLt7cEndNhMpouzabBXFvhTVFH3u3UsA1yTCkDvwRyGQNnK74Q2AoJs6Pt