Life is, at times, but Shades of Grey.

Over the last few days, I read through two novels- Gillian Flynn’s ‘Dark Places’ & Sheila O’Flanagan’s ‘Stand By Me’.

Both belong to different genres, I enjoyed both of them & yet, found a commonality. Strangely I was left with a heavy heart with both. Dark Places talks about darkness in our lives & possibly the darkness within us. It always amazes me how artists capture psychological concepts in their books or films without studying them at times. It’s always a reminder for me that psychology is about humans, humans haven’t invented it, just discovered & given it words.

This post isn’t about the reviews of the two books & the views I express are mine & my interpretations.
I was also heartened by both the books. Dark Places talks about darkness in us & how for some of us the dark around us, in our environment triggers the one within, sometimes we are born with a lot stacked against us. Ben, one of the protagonist of the novel, has a depressed, overwhelmed mother who can’t just be a good caregiver. When you read her accounts you know she is doing her very best to take care of her four children but her very best just isn’t good enough. Ben also has to contend with a absentee, self-absorbed, addict father. It doesn’t help that he has a sensitive temperament that doesn’t help to deal with the chaotic, tumultuous home environment. He tries finding love with but a possible psychopath & that’s just the release that his darkness needs. I couldn’t bring myself to hate that character. He had too much to cope with, he just couldn’t have managed unless someone had helped him & there was no one.

Stand By Me talks about post-Partum Depression. A very moving account of what it is to suffer from this illness & the best part is the premise that the author rests it on. When your mother has suffered from baby blues, there is a greater chance for the baby girl to suffer from them when she herself becomes a mother! This is a well-researched fact. Again something that I learned through psychology courses. How easier this fact makes it for Domino, the protagonist, to make peace with it, finally know why she hasn’t been able to connect to her mother all her life but is able to work through her own suppressed grief to connect with her own daughter. It gladdened my heart that through a ‘chick-lit’ book such an important, well-evidenced fact is passed on.

So why am I sharing this with you?

I realised that life is also grey. Hopefully most of us don’t have to see what the characters in Dark Places have seen or gone through. But life is not a rom-com or a sitcom. I felt grateful to read that. I know that there is a lot of focus on happiness, making choices that bring the joyful & peaceful things in our lives, I support that, I believe in that. At the same time, there are dark things in our lives. All the things that we see around us- wars, rapes, robberies, murders, child abuses, bombings, prisoners-of-wars, genocides, mass murders, all of human atrocities; They are all there. They are there because we, humans beings, have unleashed them. Hopefully most of us may not have to be touched by it. But they are there. When they are there, what happens to people who commit them & who suffer due to them?

By now you are wondering why am I saying all this? Why am I talking about the morbidity that I seem to have felt due to these two books? Why I am subjecting you to it on a beautiful Saturday morning?
Two reasons, I have plenty more, but today I will only write about two.

First, there needs to be an acknowledgment of darkness in this world. It’s there all around. With the right mix of genes & environment you can get the darkness rear its head inside & spread it outside. Look at me, I think I am a forgiving & a non-violent person. But if I see my family slain in front of me & the killers lose on the prowl, I can feel the violence rise in me. I am fairly sure I can find the power within me to bring justice. Scary isn’t it? I can feel those dark & grey shades within me. We all have it & sometimes it’s not only about the environment or the genes.

As Carl Jung said,
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

Second, they say compassion & empathy are the antidote to violence. I agree completely. What happens if your experiences don’t include compassion or empathy? What happens if anger, pain, rage & hurt override that amount of compassion & empathy available to you? What chance do you have? All of us are blessed with or hardwired with a defense system to multiply are chances for survival. When faced with danger, we will use one of the following – fight, flight, freeze, giving in/compliance, total submission/collapse & cry for help. At times the cry for help is misunderstood or disregarded. What choice will your system have left if it is faced with danger again & again with no respite or kindness in site? We lay the ground ripe to fertilise a Saddam Hussein or a Dawood or a Eisenhower!

Will you will feel any empathy for them? Probably not, I can’t feel it much either. Now no compassion, more violence & so on, so forth. So the cycle goes on, & the next generation coming from these people will perpetuate the same horror, largely.. Remember the Godfather!

Am I recommending violence or loving thy horror-inducing enemy? Nope. I am just thinking, pondering over the grey shades of life. I can’t find compassion for something that I find intolerable in me. I can’t find kindness for something I deny in me. For me the journey starts from acknowledging the darkness & grey shades in me.
When I see someone being self-obsessed & I hate it, I need to make an internal journey to know that I can’t allow myself to be so self-obsessed & hence I hate a reminder of that. I hate that it’s so easy for someone & I really hate that they can get away with that. Damn, I can’t even get to say it for myself! Possibly I may need more self focus in life, may be I am not enough focussed on my needs.

When I find compassion, for that part of me, I will find some compassion when I see it in some one else. But before I let compassion be the healing balm for my darkness, am I ready to see it?

I am

Are you?

“When you start hiding things away, that’s when the darkness creeps up. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Can we stop hiding that there isn’t darkness in this world? Can we bring it into the sunlight? There is & has been for ages, from Witch Hunting in Salem to Taliban. The two books I mentioned speak of that in their own way & for some reasons, may be the writers’ skill & belief, it felt real, really real..

So All I am asking for it is to be acknowledged, talked about. It’s real, it’s there to stay…

Do you think we can do that? Would you do that?