This slogan "pushing back the dark" appears on a hubski sticker that was created collaboratively by insomniasexx, kleinbl00, and veen and others.
The original quote came from an essay by kb and got thrown into the slogan collection here.
But what is the dark?
I've been thinking about this question for a while.
There's individual darkness. I think we see a little of it on this website - when our fears and conflict are discussed. The voices are different every week, but the questions are the same: Will I be loved? Will I be accepted if I reveal my true self? Who am I? Will I get a job? Should I finish school?
Then there's a greater darkness: war, racism, and injustice that we observe in the world around us, touching others and touching us.
There's so many things that push it back: music, laughter, poetry.
Tell me in a line or two: What is the dark? How do you push it back? Has your dark been pushed back a little?
I think the dark is a lack of critical thinking and intellectual curiosity.
The dark is an overwhelming sensation of boredom. Though most people don't see it this way, I believe that boredom is a dangerous thing- it can, and will, hold you back from progressing- which might lead you to regretting that you wasted so much time. I push the dark by searching for new music.
I have always been so afraid of facing that feeling. You hear about how so many people go through it everyday. Though some days I do slightly skim the surface of not knowing my purpose. I guess it's why I am currently trying to find something I am good at. To stay self motivated.
Darkness is anything that threatens society. It's ignorance, it's arrogance, it's greed. It's tribalism in modern times, it's expecting everyone else to conform to your moral standards, it's a lack of respect and an entitlement to respect at the same time. My dark is back in full. My dark isn't a general set of things I see as bad. It's not the dark you're asking about. I don't need a lot of socialization. I don't get lonely. I'm not depressed that I don't have a social life. I'm usually fine doing my own thing and a lot of responsibilities to others get in the way of me working on what I find rewarding. But this isn't sustainable. I will need someone. Sooner than later as I get older. But all those things I mentioned in the first paragraph are in you, they're in me, they're in my grandma. To some degree you suck and I suck and grandma does and every time I think I find someone it doesn't work, quickly and with no explanation it seems. I'm not a total misanthrope, I can engage people with high levels of repulsive opinions on a daily basis, but I haven't connected with anyone on a level I found to be profound in like eight years. I'm tired. I'm sorry, was this a question about a website?
The darkness is fear, use love to keep it at bay.
The dark, for me is a lack of affection and connection. I think there are things that I wasn't provided as a very small child and as such I crave them in adulthood. The lack of them creates a void that I can fill with things like food and alcohol OR with art and music. Obviously art and music are preferable void-fillers. When I can't fine the time for art and music, I turn to the quick void-fillers already mentioned. I'm lucky I don't have access to things like pain killers or I'd most definitely employ them regularly. So yeah, music and art push back the dark for me. Hubski does too. Also exercise. But seriously, does anyone have a Vicodin?
Ignorance. I prefer the extended title of Carl Sagan's book - "The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark".
Do you ever feel like you're actually over-eager to do this - and all too often undiscerning whilst doing it - such that your self image is cripplingly unstable?
The darkness is the prescription of ideas and thoughts that prevent the further generation of ideas and thoughts. Simply put, we stop it by continuing to generate conversation and philosophical thought.
The dark, I think, is what hasn't yet been talked about. This website is all about branching out and talking about new things and ideas.
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.
I like to think of the dark as my unbridled lazy impulses. Those ones that urge me to just browse vapid content instead of seeking out enriching articles. Or ones that push me back into the habit of getting high every night instead of making sure I'm dedicated to my work and daily life. The more I succumb to these tendencies, the less light there is in my life. The more I get used to 'the dark,' the harder it is to see, or acknowledge, all the opportunities for light around me. The dark is pushed back by maintaing an aware, curious, and open mind. Hubski certainly serves a place in this relationship. It upholds itself as a bastion of interesting, often lesser seen articles, a veritable hub of people smarter than me, and an environment of genuine relationships between users. It is a collection of people mutually sharing and growing their light through a medium where it is easy to stumble into the dark. It also a site I have been neglecting recently, which makes me sad.
Thank you for your thoughts. I very much relate to your notion of dark -- but had not realized it until reading your post. I was reading the goals posts last night. I suspect there's a corelation between goals and these light/darkness thoughts. Perhaps we'll do an update NEXT WEEK... it would only trouble me if I saw the goals reminder right now as I have succumbed to a nasty cold.
I think the dark is anything that stops you from being able to see who you really are. Whether its excessive drug use, anger, sadness, or any other negative force, it causes you to almost lose certain parts of yourself. Anger causes you to lose sight of peace. Sadness causes you to lose sight of the happiness you previously had. When you look over these obstacles, or rise above, you are able to see who you really are and how you can avoid losing parts of yourself in the future. While we all have these moments, people who can be seen as in the light are able to control themselves and keep sight of who they are, even in times of strife.
EDIT I am moved, touched, and impressed with all these definitions and discussions of pushing back the dark. Every contributor here should get some "pushing back the dark" stickers. Can someone put all these definitions together into an art form? thenewgreen podcast??
Darkness has always been within arms reach for me. I was raised in a dysfunctional family. In high school I discovered alcohol (drinking age was 18 then) and weed and saw no reason to become a responsible adult. I left home and eventually started a family. Nothing seemed unusual or abnormal in my life until my parents died, then I had a nervous breakdown. I thought self medicating was helping me to cope, but it started to affect my behavior with my family and at my job. Coping skills and social interaction are part of a balanced life that leads to growth. I sought counseling because I thought I was becoming UN-hinged, years later I see how stunted I had become. Out of 5 siblings, only a couple of us have survived (more or less). I was the only one to get help and go on medication and it has given me decades of stability. My kids are in their mid 20's and I been married for 35 years. I wanted to be an over-achiever like those around me, but I'm thankful to be a survivor. Since the 50's we've enjoyed freedom and prosperity in this country. So much change has occurred since then and now the rate of change continues to accelerate. Much of what my grandparents taught me doesn't apply. In an ever-changing world your best approach is to stay healthy, stay positive, stay informed, then the world seems less dark.
The dark is giving up, or failure to work. Lack of meaningful activity is the same. This makes the claim of "pushing back the dark" untrue, unless the dark is a lack of good conversation. Bit ridiculous to say that a website can get rid of something so personal. I push it back by doing things that improve myself. As long as I can keep improving, I'll be in the light.
Isn't the dark pushed back a bit if you are alone in a dark place and a voice speaks out of the darkness and says, "You're not alone"? Isn't the dark pushed back a bit if you need confidence to move out of the darkness? And a voice speaks out of the darkness and says, "You can do it. You can leave that dark place. You can dump that chump or find new friends or face down the bullies or gain some perspective or be less binary." And you do. Isn't the dark pushed back a bit if .... you tell me.Bit ridiculous to say that a website can get rid of something so personal.
Ridiculous, yet true.
The darkness is the unexplored, by discussion we circle the darkness. A good discussion spreads In several direction, replacing a little darkness. From every branch a new evolves, spinning a silkthread through the darkness. We conquere the dark, at the point, where this one question, a 1dimensional point is the starting point for many 2dimensional threads growing to an amount where there has emerged 3dimensional solid figure of light.
I think macro and micro dark are one in the same. That's one of the things that I've always liked about Islam, that idea of Greater versus lesser Jihad, but I digress. The inner, singular darkness, when not properly dealt with, and when in a group of people who experience the same shade of darkness, that is how we get war, bigotry, flame wars, and North Dakota. What is the darkness? It's my wont to say that the darkness is struggle, but that's not quite true. Struggle is good. It is how we get art, how we get poetry, how we get advancement of any kind. In my opinion, the darkness is our fear that the struggle isn't worth it, or that it won't amount to anything. I think that fear of insignificance is the sparking force behind the great conflagrations of the soul. When we begin to believe it, begin to give in to the darkness, we begin to try to find a way of removing it, convince ourselves that some external thing stands in the way of our struggle, our progress, being meaningful. The tragedies of the world arise when a group of people begin to see other people as that external thing. As for how we push it back? I think we push it back by forcing significance upon our every endeavor. It's true, Music, poetry and all forms of art push it back. First because they show us that human experience is universal, and that makes it a lot harder to give into, for some reason. When you feel insignificant, you feel isolated, lonely. Seeing that every human being out there has the same feelings and tribulations as you, that makes you feel part of something, part of humanity. Laughter, bonding with friends, does the same thing. In summation, I think the darkness is the belief that we are insignificant, and nothing we do matters. This is cosmically true (well, as far as we know), but we push it back by narrowing our view. Recognizing that we may be cosmically insignificant, but we can be incredibly significant to those around us.
The darkness is forgetting your connection to the divine reality of nature. I personally push it back by reminding myself of this connection and by aspiring to be more than what we currently see as humanity.
Dark is perhaps resistance. Resistance being the inner ego constantly trying to champion the mind. It's the thing that stifles growth. By pushing it back, one expands his or her thought, intelligence, sympathy, etc. Like Krishnamurti says: "be a light to yourself." Burn away the dark.
Light and Darkness. The two forces that make for three. You cannot divide the world completely into light or dark, because the razor margin in between one and another is both yet neither. We exist on this meridian, watchers on the worlds edge between light and dark, id and super ego, desire and duty. Like the ying yang symbol, these edges ebb and flow. Sometimes you are cold and logical and other times you give in to emotion, for better or worse. I could not rightfully call either of these forces "good" or "bad", as they are beyond the scrim of my understanding. Instead, I see these forces as matters of proportion in our human systems. Light is the force of revelation, as it banishes the darkness/ ignorance so that we may see the world for what it is. Yet, too much light can drive a man mad. You are who you are in the dark, and in the face of no dark corners to hide in, where can I be me? Darkness is Lovecraft’s placid sea of ignorance, the boogeyman that gives mankind a definite border in his kingdom. Sometimes you need “Here be dragons!” to keep you away from a situation you are not really prepared to face. Some darkness/ignorance is a necessary thing, as it seems that our own psychology has defense mechanisms designed to narrow our scope to keep us from simply being overwhelmed by the indifference of the cosmos. Darkness be cool and nurturing, yet it can be the void that steals the man. What I mean to say is that dark and light have their place in the world. It is by our ignorance and inaction that we allow them to become unbalanced as so to bring us harm. Light is extroversion and inter-connectivity, and darkness is introversion and disconnection. As sentient beings, our awareness is neither but a function of the interplay between both, acquiring relevance only through the contact between these two yet three forces in our lives. We are active agencies that through our actions choose amalgams of light and dark and project them to others around us. Websites such as hubski are such expressions of the interplay between light and dark. What do we as individuals transmit and receive through this system? Will we derive deeper understandings of these forces and therefore of ourselves through discussion and consensus? I certainly hope so. This website is the first I have ever signed up for out of anything other than necessity. I see how we as individual subsystems of a larger social function can transmit data which can be acted upon to bring real change. Awareness is the leading edge of a revelation, a million years of human knowledge leading to the idea that we divide the world into self/ not self yet our reality is the division operator. I do believe in “pushing back the dark”, yet I am aware that while knowledge itself has no “charge”, its use can be positive or negative. What ideas will you push? ( I will say as someone that bailed from reddit that I felt overall it was a system that perpetuated ignorance, and therefore an active force for darkness in our societies. I do miss the terrible puns however.)
I feel that the dark could be considered the unknown, or even confusion. I may have not been on this website for long, however it seems to emphasize respectful and intellectual discussion, which indicates to me that by "pushing back the dark", hubski is providing a platform to which people can challenge themselves with new mindsets, ideas, and stories of others. So I guess a simple summary would be that my "dark" is my sense of what is unknown. I push it back by craving new knowledge and stories of different life experiences, which possibly help me clear up confusion in my own life.
I push back the dark by enjoying the simplicity of life, engaging in self-care and successfully completing activities of daily living like laundry, shower, kitchen duty, etc., etc., it is simpler than you think to push back the dark but you must engage in it everyday otherwise "the dark" will comsume you.
Ignorance, Temptation, Belligerence, Wrath, Greed, basically any of the Seven Deadly Sins, there's lots of stuff that could be considered "The Dark". I think a lot of the Dark varies from person to person. For one, the Dark could manifest as chronic alcoholism, and for another, it could be a bad masturbation habit. For another it could just be a foul mouth.
Perhaps darkness can be pushed back by knowledge and reality. The more we know is the more our path to what is reality is given light; therefore, extinguishing the darkness.