Wield both light and darkness, don’t lose yourself to one or the other

First of all, I would like to inform you all that I will now be doing one post per day, rather than two as I have previously been doing, since I need space for ideas on what to post to develop inside my mind.

And now, today’s post.

We humans are creatures of both light and darkness, and all too often we delude ourselves into thinking we are either one or the other with no in-between. Our human nature is quite a complex one. We’ve got both light and dark forces in the human psyche. Both rational and irrational. Both logical and sensual. Both heavenly and chthonic forces are at play in our minds, and they form our mind. To lose touch with our human nature, whether because of losing our selves to austere loftiness or losing ourselves to carnal insanity, is the closest you can get to losing your humanity. Don’t confuse this with good and evil, for that is a matter of opinion.

Let’s say you are cut off from your nature to the point of being too light.

Too much light, too saintly, too austere, too cut off from desire.

You become way too lofty, to the point of insufferability. You become too sheltered and isolated from the forces of the psyche that form your humanity and enrich your life. You become very artificial in your effort to become a paragon of virtue. You become dull and boring. You become devoted to self-mortification and austerity. You are too much like an angel, and not enough like a human being.

Let’s now say you are too absorbed by darkness.

Too much darkness, too depraved, too indulgent, too cut off from the brighter qualities of human nature.

You have now lost control of the primal desires that would otherwise be a great joy. You become far too depraved. You become blind and cannot the see brighter qualities like thought, reason, good judgement, etc. that form your humanity and enable you to construct your character. You are now completely without light. You become absolutely destructive, even to yourself. You are too much like an imp, and an exaggeration of the animalistic part of ourselves, not enough like a human being.

Have both light and darkness.

Therefore, it is best to recognize the duality of your nature, and carry both light and darkness like serpents in your hands. You can lean a little towards the other, or even sit on the boundary between too much and just right, but no further. There’s such a thing as one dominant over the other, but never have total 100% one or another. Never delude yourself into thinking you have to have it one way or the other. In a way, it’s similar to how Gautama Buddha rejected both over-indulgence and self-mortification. I’d also caution against being neutral to the point of emptiness, because then you would have neither light nor darkness.

The simple bottom line is simply to not too absorbed in either your bright or animalistic traits, or you will miss the full picture of your human nature. Be as bright as you want, but don’t be cut off from your primal desires. Be as wild as you want but don’t be too blind of brightness.

Don’t lose control of yourself.