Lessons in Darkness
I took a virtual yoga class yesterday that enlightened me about darkness. The teacher, a wonderfully giving soul (with none of that fakey self-righteous hero stuff yoga teachers sometimes have), planted in our minds the thought that we need not always be striving towards constant joy, or constant “lightness,” for it is in darkness that we discover much about ourselves and often where more meaningful growth happens. I instantly dug this philosophy. He gave us this quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to chew on:
Discovering joy does not, I’m sorry to say…save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily, too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet, as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreak without being broken.
As someone who cries as much (usually more) from laughter as from sorrow, this resonated with me bigtime. I’ve always thought that leaning into the darkness made me feel the lighter emotions more fully, and Tutu’s words echo that sentiment. There’s been plenty of darkness recently (some might say too much?)— from the pandemic, the ever-chaotic state of the world, and on a more personal level, not seeing my family for over a year — but all of this seemingly crappy stuff has made the joyous moments more precious. I FaceTime with my family more now than I did in the Before Times, and that connection, though virtual, has helped immensely.
Where I’ve really been feeling the darkness lately is in my current endeavor: learning computer programming. Sitting alone, 9 stories above the wintry New York City streets, staring at a computer screen all day feels preeeetty dark, y’all. But when I grasp a concept or my code finally works, the joy is Christmas-morning-level-elation. I firmly believe that nothing that is worth doing is easily done, which is cool because I picked something really hard! I have goals of becoming a developer and these circumstances make for the ideal time to learn programming: I’m unemployed, and it’s socially responsible to stay home all the time.
I expect that more of these essays will reflect the technical aspects of what I’m working on, but for my first post I wanted to wax a lil philosophical. Suffice it to say I’m happy to lean into The Darkness.
For me, it always comes back to music. Alex Ebert sings about darkness in his song “Truth,” which I can never listen to just once in a sitting. I want to climb inside this tune and live in its mystic warmth:
I’ve grown up some
Different kind of fighter
And when the darkness come let it inside you
Your darkness is shining
My darkness is shining
Have faith in myself
Truth
Until yesterday I hadn’t really paused to reflect on the yin/yang duality as it relates to an intellectual pursuit. Turns out it’s applicable to just about everything in life (as is evidenced by thousands of years of writing, lol). I picture these connections in my brain like a big bulletin board where I’m the detective of my own mind.
I know there is darkness ahead. But that means I’ll feel the light that much more.
