In a very general sense, it's the present day manifestation of whatever awaits after the heat-death of the universe. To name a few personal specifics: It is the wee small hours spent alone in quiet desperation and sorrow. It is the impulse to spin the wheel in the middle of a fast and crowded freeway. It is all the scars built up on a heart that repeatedly cried out for compassion and found indifference and cruelty instead. It is the little voice in my head that assures me the world would be better off without me. It is the urge to fight darkness with exogenous chemicals. (Is recursion okay?) It is the lack of nuance that turns ostensibly peaceful ideologies into the worse forms of violence and oppression.
Hi Ben -- I'm just rereading this. It's a profound reflection. Also, while you might think you go from the personal dark to a more abstract universal concept of darkness, the last item can be turned into the personal as well. Lack of nuance (binary thinking) and violence (onto one's self.)
I hadn't considered that, thanks for the perspective. If I thought there was a benefit in doing so, I would compile a catalog of personal demons. A list of the specific feelings of an incursion of darkness, and if possible what triggered them. There have definitely been times where I have felt something negative that seemed... External somehow. Sadness that's somehow alive, or at least moving, dynamic.