Darkness

Have you ever truly been in the dark? Literally, I mean, and not figuratively. I have once, in what almost seems to be a past lifetime. While in Hungary with my last girlfriend we visited a dark house, an attraction on the outskirts of Budapest. The place was pitch black, with blind guides to help people around, and exhibits to listen to and feel.

Being literally in the dark was a scary experience, in many ways quite similarly to being figuratively in the dark. There's a feeling of helplessness and cluelessness that's hard to shake. In the Dark House I had to close my eyes and make it dark by choice and still the panic built.

Why panic? The truth is that once the light goes you forget pretty quickly what it was ever like to see, and that's truly scary. I wasn't used to it and presumably no-one is any more. In the modern world there never is darkness unless you actively seek it out, and even then it's difficult to find. The figurative analogy is that we forget what it was ever like to understand. That latter idea is almost worse, don't you think?

Touring a dark house with your girlfriend and a blind guide has some advantages, not the least interesting is that you build some teamwork and empathy. Leading one another around can be fun when it's not scary, as well as illuminate character features you've missed in other more conventional situations. Still, it happened what seems to be a lifetime ago. If we finishing the analogy, teamwork and empathy can help you survive the other kind of darkness too.

Maybe we should practice being in the dark sometimes? Just so we know how to get out?

O.