Dark shines a light on the light.

I am currently listening to extremely dark music that is intelligent and contains a lucid philosophy or style-mode which sets it apart from the typical brainless metal/goth/industrial and what have you. To wit: Coil, Tool, A Perfect Circle, Swans, Nine Inch Nails, Joy Division, Nico, Einstürzende Neubauten and onwards into the ever-downward spiral. Rather than being a way of keeping myself down, as it might seem, it is a comfort to me that there are other intelligent beings on this earth who see beauty in sadness as the balance to emptiness in joy, and do not shy away from profound philosophical questions in their music. Compare this to most bands who get airplay now, even so-called alternative fare soothingly wafting around the comfy chairs at Starbucks, and you'll see what I mean. I'm not one to shy away from much (except mind-altering drugs which in your opinion may be my fatal flaw or an acceptable stance given my history with them, even as determined as I was to have a transcendently positive experience). Peering over that edge seems to be built into my essential humours (we now call them genes) and no matter what kind of noble life I try to lead, and show decency to others, I fall under the inescapable curse of my very nature again and again.

In trying to understand this, I am trying to understand my allure to the existentialist, even nihilistic side of music and poetry. I think I've moved beyond the age of glamorizing it, thinking it's cool to be dark, or of thinking it's something which is wholly compatible with self-growth or life in general. It explains life, but like an acid released when the scroll is read, it destroys it too. Nevertheless I will never be satisfied with insubstantial pop or feel-good folk, country, or pub-rock (usually rife with covers tracks) that infest the world from Coldplay on down to David Gray, to cutesy Nashville punsters and who have their stupid material written for them and only provide a voice and a face to the public. People who don't write what they perform and play their own instruments make me angry. There is always time to learn and to become whole. True explorational people (artists we usually call them) extend as far as they can go, into artwork, video, design, installations... always searching for a better way to put across what is in their minds and thus both release the bottled demon and the genie who grants us all our wishes. It is a no-compromise approach to existence, rushed headlong into by the bravest amongst us, the Nick Caves, Ian Curtis's, Michael Giras, Leonard Cohens and many others.

All the rest of music is an exercise in self-congratulations, laziness of intellect, or a desire to find safety inside a created nest, which Buddhism points out is a false safety. Only by constantly exposing yourself to that which you don't understand and oftentimes frightens you will you learn gradually to lose your fear of all things. All people on this earth are human, and so work and play at the level of you and me. They are not demons or angels. What is there to fear from someone who is classified in the same biological taxon as you? Nothing. Other minds may present startling ideas that shake you up and take some time before finding their place in your own world view, and indeed your world view may alter in some ways to accommodate new truths. Traveling - physically or mentally - makes one wiser but less naively happy. Knowledge is the birthright of every being born on this earth, and in the end by knowing all extremes, it begins to become possible to define the topology of not only human consciousness but reality itself. To shun one half for the other leads to false happiness; which is to say, suffering.

And transcending this everyday suffering for a new, holistic and balanced view of nature is a goal of mine, and millions of other searchers besides. I am of the opinion darkness can only exist with light, evil with good, and that these dualities define the endless cycle of being. To cling to one and fear the other gets you nowhere but more and more neurotic. Might as well open your eyes to the truth, because whether you look or not, it's there.