In the Dark

By Andrew R. Duckworth

In the cool, dark hours of the morning, it’s quiet with few souls awake to stir up the endless shitpot of bad ideas. Even the wind doesn’t dare interrupt the peace. But the mind can’t shake yesterday, where each day brings a brand new sense of egregiousness, the endless string of bad deeds from bad actors.

The dark of the morning is a metaphor—a false peace, a false sense of security, being in the dark. And the sad reality seems to be that many enjoy this darkness, the veil that is only partially lifted, the veil that still makes ignorance possible. With each new day, that veil gets stitched together with the lies of the wicked, those who thrive on the ignorance of others, those who bank on the public’s inability to remember in the days of endless distractions.

In the dark, what gets illuminated? Little. And the day brings little in terms of truth, a term that has largely vanished from society. At the best, truth is seen as subjective, something that changes from person to person. If anything has taught us that this view of truth is dangerous, it is the times that we live in. Can truth ever really be subjective? Not if we consider what truth is. Truth is true, from one person to the next. Should it be different, it would not be truth. If it is true for you, it is true for me. If it is true for me, it is true for you. The thought, in these days where language has been so cleverly and deceptively utilized, must be jarring. But it is important that we reach back to the past to restore meaning to words now long corrupted. And who is the corrupter? That question is difficult to answer. It most certainly is not confined to one group, but the responsibility, most likely, rests on the shoulders of society as a whole.

I should clarify that language is playful. It always has been. As creatures, we’ve long used language in an artful way—figurative language, for an example. I began writing with the metaphor of the quiet morning. Literally, a morning is just a time of day. While it may be more quiet in the morning for the average person, it does not stress that the morning is always quiet, or that the morning is always dark, or that the morning is always calm. But, as a device, “morning,” figuratively, can stress all of this. I utilized “morning” and its quietness and its darkness to stress “ignorance,” or being “in the dark.” The elimination of such use of language is not what I propose.

When we speak literally, we need to keep terms the way they have been. To change the meanings of words to achieve our own ends breeds confusion and ignorance, as evidenced by the common understanding of “truth,” where anything can be “true” based on a subjective standpoint. One plus seven will never equal seventy-eight regardless of who believes it to be “true.”

And yet, even this squabbling over language does little to change the reality of the darkness that currently cloaks the world. Yet, those who lie know how to manipulate others, even manipulate language to achieve selfish ends. We see it in our politicians, in our leaders, in institutions. And “truth” is only the tip of the iceberg.