Beware of Darkness

Beware of Darkness

Woke up this morning and made the rounds. I was half watching/listening to Concert for Bangladesh while reading Mike Golby. There’s nothing like being reminded just how really small so much of the bullshit we wrestle with in the USA really is early on a Sunday morning. A song came on I hadn’t heard in a long while, and it made me think.

Watch out now, take care
Beware of falling swingers
Dropping all around you
The pain that often mingles
In your fingertips
Beware of darkness

Watch out now, take care
Beware of the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night

There’s a lot of darkness out there. It’s so hard to resist the paralysis it can bring. It’s hard not to be silent, and dark. It makes me understand more deeply why religion is so important to some people, a faith in something greater than the day-to-day which rolls around our ankles like quicksand, threatening to envelop you so that you cannot take a step.

Beware of sadness
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for

Watch out now, take care
Beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly
Beware of Maya

But it was the last verse that hit like a lightning-bolt. The world wants to grow, and not be consumed in the dark silences of introspection. You can’t see where you’re going, if you’re constantly staring at your shoes.

Watch out now, take care
Beware of greedy leaders
They take you where you should not go
While Weeping Atlas Cedars
They just want to grow, grow and grow
Beware of darkness (beware of darkness)

Darkness and silence are the real enemies which must be resisted at all costs.