Boundless Deep

My Spoken Story

I was diagnosed as evil when I was 10 years old. 

 

Even now, the words reverberate in my memory, accompanied by a vivid recollection of the old psychiatrist. His eyebrows, unusually long and disheveled, seemed to extend in every direction, as if attempting to grasp out at his words:  "Joan has an unusual attraction to darkness".  

 

As I reflect on the years that followed, I have come to realize that as a child I internalized those words as a prescription to actively seek out the realms of evil. Thus, my teenage years became defined by my pursuit of the most overt manifestations of darkness I could conceive: delving into the occult, exploring witchcraft, and venturing into the realms of demonology and conjurism. 

It was a bitter disappointment to discover that I possessed no special talent for such endeavors. Failing to excel as an exceptionally good human being is one thing, but it is an entirely different realm of disappointment to find oneself a failure at being devoid of virtue as well.  This failure to achieve in either realm left me bereft of any discernible source of value or purpose within myself, and the consequences of this void were far-reaching.

 

It wasn’t until my final year of medical school that the profound truth of the doctor’s words became clear:  I do indeed possess an unusual attraction to darkness.

 

But what I failed to grasp as a child, is the fact that not all darkness is evil.  

 

Darkness, at its core, is simply that which causes us to suffer.   There are countless forces that give rise to suffering in our lives, and evil is just one of them. Fear, sadness, love, and even joy can introduce elements of suffering into our existence. However, more often than not, suffering emerges as a result of the relentless passage of time and the inherent nature of being alive. Darkness, in and of itself, lacks any intrinsic qualities like good or evil. It simply exists.

 

But to learn that, it turns out, I would first need to speak with the dead.

 

In the windowless rooms of a metropolitan morgue, one might expect to find frightful manifestations of evil. But to the contrary, never before or since, have I experienced less fear of death, than when standing in his presence. 

 Previously, fear had always painted him as a clamourous force. Yet there in the morgue, the dead sang only a sound of transcendent quietude.  To hear it is to hear only the pure absence of suffering.  To touch their still forms is to feel no vibration, only a magnetic tranquility that mirrors the vessel’s profound emptiness. In that remarkable space death lives unrestricted, yet the dead do not fear him.  As their guest, sojourning with death in his own domain, I bore witness only to his nature as a gracious and gentle host.

 

I understood after that experience, that my unusual attraction to darkness, was just another way of describing my innate ability to find solace and familiarity in the places where most others find suffering.   And as such, that I am particularly well suited to roles that require working with darkness.  Society depends on individuals undertaking many diverse stigmatized roles; so too it requires both the death workers, and the caretakers of those it fears and ostracizes.  

The calling to work with the darkness that surrounds or resides within others, is not a manifestation of evil.  Rather, it is a rare and precious gift which allows a select few to serve humanity in an equally remarkable manner by fulfilling our most profound and fundamental needs.

 

So yes Dr Houser, I am unusually attracted to darkness.  And, I know now, that is an integral part of my value as a person.

Author's Note

https://youtu.be/RxgdIrVSOSE?si=bNIuu89Swi-Y_Jq0