darkness

I read something once along the lines of "darkness can't be fought because it's unreal. What appears as darkness is only the absence of light. To clear out the darkness one need only increase the light."

Translated roughly to a psychological level, what's being said is that the "darkness" inside of us - things like hatred, anger, fear, worry, anxiety, stress, problems, insecurities, etc - can't be defeated directly because they aren't really substantial things on their own. They only appear out of an absence of "light" - of things like love, fun, joy, acceptance, play, creativity, expression, etc. Or maybe just awareness.

If left to my conditioned responses, I tend to habitually fixate on and attempt to purge the "darkness" from myself and my life. Trying to correct or rid myself of these things directly, whether it be fear, anger, doubt, insecurity, unsatisfying relationships, whatever it is. Usually this manifests as a form of control or suppression, either trying to change it or pushing it down and not allowing myself to feel, though in time it always resurfaces.

In these moments my logic is something like "I can't be okay until I fix/get rid of these things. Once I do, then I'll feel good and be okay". The reality is that it can't be done because they only appear out of an absence of something else. In trying to fight them directly, all I'm doing is strengthening their presence in my life by making them bigger and more real than they actually are through my attention and energy.

It's like trying to fight shadows - you can see them but there's nothing substantial to hit so you just exhaust yourself fighting empty space. The solution isn't to fight the shadows but to increase the amount of light, or simply to turn towards it. Then the shadows disappear.