Black and White, Who Knew?

The brighter the light, the blacker the shadows. 

The blackness in the world seems blacker than usual, although beheadings are probably less cruel than drawing and quartering - our well-honed talent for cruel and unusual punishments is breathtaking.  History is no more or less cruel than what is displayed via computer or television today.  We just have better access to the creative psychopaths than before the advent of modern media.

At the same time however, our capacity for giving, for compassion, for love is greater than ever.  No matter how awful the world seems - and watching the news which thrives on and indeed is a venue for the Theatre of the Cruel, it is matched, even exceeded by goodness.  People donating time money and effort to helping the millions of refugees left adrift in the world.  Governments can be merciless and cold (witness Australia's treatment of refugees held like criminals in 'detention centres' - prisons is a more accurate description) but individuals shine. 

If our collective dreaming was of good happy things would reality be any less real?  Is Heaven boring and is that why we dream the shadows as well as the light?  Is there any point in being good when goodness cannot exist without evil to measure it against?  Is goodness relative to the density of evil?

The universe cannot be black despite the absolute blackness of deep space because of the presence of starpricks of light.  There is no atmosphere to diffuse the light or to soften the blackness.  Absolute light and absolute black.  

I get worked up about things.  Lots of things, from the knuckle dragging Neanderthal Roosh Valizadeh who advocates the legalization of rape on private property to the head in the sand mentality of governments, corporations and multinationals in regard to climate change.  My neighbours rile me with their cavalier attitude to the animals in their charge or their environmental vandalism credentials (which are five star!).  Like a mainsail buffeted by wind, at the mercy of an unattended tiller I lurch from one aghast and disgusted episode to another.  

This has to stop.

It's wearing me out.  

The next stage is to figure out how.  I suspect it has to do with meditation and the stillness of the unbuffeted center.