The Call Of The Dark
Those familiar with the English system of house purchase will know that it is a strange, elongated affair, providing - how shall I put it? - ample opportunities for spiritual self-development. A large part of the problem is that the purchase price of the house is 'agreed' at the outset, but is not legally fixed until contracts are exchanged some two months or more later, during which intervening period the interested parties are free to use whatever tactics they wish to try to tip the deal in their favour. Traditionally, if a purchaser reduces the price they are offering, this will be accompanied by some legitimate excuse, such as unforeseen circumstances arising out of the building surveyor's report, but it is becoming increasingly common, particularly amongst those who are buying a property as an investment, to simply demand a reduction in price because they have the power to do so and will walk out on the deal if they don't get it. Several months after the original agreement and a matter of days before the intended date of removal, this can be a difficult offer for vulnerable families and other innocent house-owners to refuse, a fact of which the investors are all too well aware. And of course, as far as they're concerned, it's only business.
Add to this the fact that the various house-owners involved - and there can often be a great 'chain' of these, their sales all dependent upon each others' - are not in touch with each other directly and can only communicate through a network of lawyers, estate agents, and other third parties, each of these with their own vested interests, and you have a perfect recipe for the kinds of double dealings, misunderstandings, and petty animosities which humans tend to attract into their lives. The little couple who were so polite when they came to look round your house some months ago (and have scarcely been seen since) tend to grow in the imagination into twin demons from the nether regions of hell, their horns growing longer and their tails sharper with every lawyer's letter which lands on the front doormat. It is all too easy to lose sight of the underlying humanity of the other parties involved.
So, as you might have guessed from all that, the news is that our house move is not running smoothly. I'm not sure the difficulties are anything out of the ordinary - many of the people we've told about them go on to tell us of similar problems they've had themselves - and our estate agent ensures us it will all be all right in the end, but I wanted to write about this here because I enjoy a good moan it brought it home to me how easy it is to get sucked into all this drama.
When I put down the phone after the latest news from the estate agent, I find myself attributing all sorts of sinister motives to the latest events. I compose replies to imagined letters, ripostes to imagined slights; I rehearse my departing speech as I storm from the room having cancelled the deal altogether in response to the evil subterfuge of the other parties involved. The fact that such a message would inevitably be imparted via the estate agent and toned down considerably in the process seems to escape me at such times. But this is hardly surprising, as this stream of consciousness has little to do with reality - any more than TV soap operas have to do with reality.
After all my years of what I like to think of as spiritual development, I have at least realized this much. I still engage in these conversations with myself. The difference is that I understand how ridiculous they are and that I don't have to do it if I don't choose to.
But that's the problem. Most of the time I do choose to. I do it because a large part of me likes it. I'll go further: a large part of me is addicted to it, just as an alcoholic is addicted to his favourite tipple.
I am not alone in my addiction. All over the world, we see evidence of people being drawn into drama, being drawn to turn the interactions of everyday life into a story, in which injustices are contrived out of whatever material lies to hand. So people fall out with neighbours, family members and people they meet on the street; nations, races and religious groupings turn against each other and even slaughter each other, sometimes for many centuries on end: all because of some real or imagined sequence of events which has been twisted and moulded into a drama.
What is forgotten is that at the roots of such stories lie the actions of human beings like ourselves. These actions may often be selfish, thoughtless, sometimes even cruel, but all of them spring from motivations which we too will have experienced in our time. These people are human beings like ourselves and the chances are that we can understand them if we try.
Sometimes, when people's motivations are known,the impulse behind the conflict will evaporate in an instant. It will be obvious that there has been a misunderstanding. At other times, we may not forgive or condone what people have done but there may be some understanding of why they did it. That way lies a coming together, a setting down of arms, an end to conflict. But that way lies no story, so most of the time it is not a path which we take.
In an earlier post, The Ultimate Purpose Of Life?, I suggested that the drama inherent in human interactions might be one of the reasons we are here on the Earth: that we need all this darkness to help to understand our essential nature, the Light. And, indeed, the creation of these stories seems to be an impulsive habit of ours. Even when there is nothing 'real' to hand to tell ourselves stories about, we have to sit down and read books and watch movies, in which people - by and large - do terrible things to each other. We really like this stuff.
It is, perhaps, a question of balance. To drink the odd glass of wine is not a problem. It is only when bottle follows bottle that things can get out of hand. Well, perhaps we are on our third or fourth bottle of drama right now. Only a few days ago, news networks were showing footage of the Virginia Tech killer in an endless loop to meet our demand for the darkness. Just how much of this do we need to see the light?
I have previously expressed reservations about the DVD The Secret here in this blog, yet I do believe in the Law of Attraction. If we dwell upon negative things, that is what we attract into our lives. If we want positive things in our lives, we have to think about them instead. It's obvious really. Even if you discard the spiritual element (which I don't) there are very good common sense reasons why the world should work in this way.
Yet knowing this, why do I still do it? Why do I still dwell on that labyrinth of problems which is the story? Why do I allow myself to be drawn into the same sort of convoluted dialogue with myself as Cho Seung-Hui used to 'justify' his violence? Why is all this drama so compelling?
As I think about this, I turn and gaze out of the window into the garden, where many of the trees are covered in pink blossom, the birds are singing, and there are green shoots of new growth springing out of the ground. Everywhere is full of the promise of spring, and just for a moment, it is enough to hold me. In the distance, I hear the darkness calling again, yet just for a moment, I am content.
We need to remember: we have a choice.
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