Darkness and Light

Six billion people look up at the moon and see six billion different things.  What do you see?  I cannot say, but I see hope.  I see a beacon of light in the darkness that represents a future for our species beyond the petty bickering, political maneuvering, wars, hate, anger and bigotry of our age.  I see the chance that we might become better than we are.  That we can be something commendable to another intelligence we might someday encounter.  Mostly, that we might actually just survive who we are.

Each of us carries within us a darkness and a light.  I can remember today the horror and revulsion I felt when as a young man I discovered within myself the capacity for great evil.  Each and every one of us carries this, but we make a choice.  I chose not to embrace the darkness, but to strive for the light.  Yet, as a whole, we still have so much darkness.  Evil spreads and we don’t fight it, we cheer it on.  One among us speaks against our lesser selves, and we jeer and mock them. 

It might be that this, much like adolescence, is just a phase that our species must simply pass through.  That there’s no cure for our rampant stupidity but to just simply grow up.  We have to wait until we’ve achieved the wisdom that only comes with age.  What worries me is just how many teenagers don’t survive to adulthood.  I was nearly one of them.  let’s hope the humans make it to adulthood. 

The coming darkness might simply be inevitable.  It might be something we can’t avoid.  It can’t, and won’t last.  We’ll either destroy ourselves or dispose of the evil we are yet to do. 

For those of us who are not cheering on our lesser nature, we’ll continue to hold a light.  It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.  I forget who said that.  Be a light.  Even if all the world is against you, be a light.