Episode 6: The Dark Experience Part 2: In Order To ‘See"‘, Switch Off The Lights

DAY 1

It's remarkable how candlelight can transform derelict, cold, indifferent spaces into spaces of intrigue, mystery and beauty. It’s why I always travel with candles.

As a Professional Speaker, I’ve sojourned in many anonymous hotels from Hong Kong to Dheli to Dubai to Vegas. Many, if not most, are quite soulless. But when you light a candle and switch off the room’s usually too-bluish, overhead lighting (lighting, sound, air and texture are the most elemental tools of design), the space transforms. I highly recommend the practice! 

It was 9pm. We were atop the Tuscan Hills under pine trees. It was summer. So though the sun had set over the valley a couple hours previous, the air remained warm … outside. But not inside the cement bunker we had just entered. The two thick, soundproof and - of most relevance - lightproof doors had just been closed from the outside. The air was chilled, damp and musty. We had just finished being instructed by the proprietors (a wonderful couple who are experts and teachers of meditation, yoga and tantra) of how we would receive our limited food supply for the next four days and nights. 

The only remaining light in the space was a line of 10 tea-light candles sitting atop a narrow cement shelf that ran 1 meter high along the length of a 3 meter wall opposite the bed. The perceptual meaning of these candles was significant.

The last burning candle was brought to the bed, where we …
… sat 
… paused 
… considered 
… reflected … 
… and then blew it out … 
to reveal the darkness that is always there.

As the days of darkness progressed, I would come to know the bunker, as well as the space of another … and the space of myself in far more intimate detail. Indeed, in more detail than ever before. This is because in order to see, sometimes your brain needs no light. As this was ‘Day 1’. we had taken the time to familiarise ourselves with the space before it went dark. But as the days of darkness progressed, I would come to know the bunker, as well as the space of another … and the space of myself in far more intimate detail. Indeed, in more detail than ever before. This is because in order to see, your brain needs understand complete darkness.

Which brings me to the point of my 2nd instalment of the Dark Experiment: Life exists in its nuanced details to which we’re so often blind. Not because they are hidden in the dark. But because they are hidden in the light.

Consider a theoretical Venn Diagram of the Platonic Form of what it is to be a man … or a woman … or a friend … or a lover … or a home. Each instance of a man or woman, etc, will have significant overlaps with all the other instances of its ‘kind’. Afterall, we are all born with legs, arms, breasts, penises, hearts, livers, brains etc. Each brain is sensitive to largely the same range of electromagnetic radiation, which we all perceive to be the same colours of red, green, blue and yellow. We are all acoustically sensitive to the same vibrational energy, which we all perceive to the same notes on a tonal scale. We all experience the same set of emotions: Fear; Desire; Disgust; Lust; Joy. Even our homes are largely stereotyped: Composed of a floor, roof and set of walls that separates the interior from the exterior. 

Which means it’s the ‘overlaps’ of the Ven Diagram that define a ‘class’ … the category … the Platonic Form to which each instance ‘belongs’. Equally, it’s the non-overlaps that define the instances. You … the person you love … the home you create … while they share overlaps with each instance of their kind, you, the person you love, the home you create is not defined by these overlaps … by the averages … by ‘normality’, but by how you and they deviate from average. 

And yet, it’s these very same detailed deviances in space, in people … in yourself … that are so rarely discovered, much less sought. We strive for average. We choose to live and love with eyes closed. Rather than with eyes open in the dark. 

You know this to be true.

Most of you will have had a moment of feeling ‘seen’ by another. What is it that you’re actually feeling? I suggest you’re feeling the moment another person has expressed the desire and has acted on that desire to discoverand hold, not your averages, but your deviances. You’re experiencing what I believe is the pursuit of true love … of true friendship in action (not in meaningless words or ‘good intentions’). 

But this doesn’t come easily, nor does it come naturally. Why? Because we’ve evolved to follow the path of least resistance. Because we strive to conserve our own energy while encouraging another to spend their energy on our behalf. Because we typically look inwards, thinking that that is where enlightenment lives. Because it requires risk, since the discovery of truth is always a risk, as it might not be the truth you wanted. 

For those who do want to love … to be a friend … to find the truth in the deviations of oneself, another and in the world around you, how do you do it? How do you create the opportunity ‘to see’? Ironically, by switching off the lights. 

By constructing an intentional niche that sits outside average. 

And that is why we proactively found ourselves in a cold, damp cement bunker about to blow out the final candle one summer’s evening in the hills of Tuscany. A niche of confinement, discomfort and darkness. Of little-to-no outward stimulation. We chose something different from what one would normally choose. 

The discovery of truth always requires stepping away rather than towards the average. It requires letting go! For instance, when one truly loves another, one does not hold. One releases. One creates the opportunity for another to go. One empowers choice. Since it’s in that choice that truth is revealed. If in that context one comes towards you, then you have one answer. If, however, they  choose to remain still or move away, then you have another. Truth is not always happy. But it is always beautiful. 

Once the candle was unlit, the adventure began. The first night was surprisingly normal. After all, we had entered when it was dark outside, and it was now dark outside. Not unlike camping really. It was time to sleep.

And yet in the normality of the moment of starting to sleep grew the anticipation of waking up, opening my eyes and not being able to see. Anxiety of the unfamiliar increased. The bed was also too small, deeply uncomfortable, as it sloped down into the middle. The cement of the damp wall flake off onto our faces.

Thus ended day one.

Until the next instalment, be well.