What you fear in the dark.

The dark will always hold some terror for me. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I assume something about it scares them too. Maybe it scares you. There’s always a reason and some more understandable than others. Maybe you were mugged, or worse when walking home from grabbing a pack of smokes, or pulling into your house out at the ends of suburbia to find your house broken into. All of that is completely understandable. Though for others, all they have is a primal fear of the night. Or maybe it’s some paranoia.

I have a fear of the night out in rural areas. I have a friend who lives out on a far in a forest clearing. Sometimes I’m there till two AM and when I’m the only one walking the 300 feet there’s nothing but me and the stars if I’m fortunate. There are nights the clouds smudge out the diamonds, leaving me with nothing but the vague darkness with my inner creepies filling the space. Every step reverberating with the adrenaline caused by the beginnings of fear. In that darkness just under the thick of growth is a horrible nightmare waiting to snarl and sink teeth into my shoulder, or raking my throat open before I can open my car door. Like that will help me at all.

I turn the car on and my headlights beam onto an aging rust bucket. For a flashing second an animal skull swings to look at me, or I look behind me to back up and a murderer shoots me through my side window and I’m left dead. Unlikely I know. I’m self aware that it’s not real, but the unknown always has the cruel weapon of “What if…” Those two words to induce the snowball of fear made of your knotted stomach. It’s these horrors that we can’t see that are the true monsters. We are our own nightmares in some depressing macabre and blah blah you get the rambling point. It’s probably not going to happen and we’re going to die of heart attacks or cancer or some other mundane lame way to go out.

…but what if…

The Universe is a Douche.

It’s not an asshole, not a mysterious cosmic wonder, just a douche. Call my cynical but I can prove it. Every curve ball thrown at you that make your life turn to shit, those days where nothing works out for you; those are its pranks and tricks to be amused at your expense. You know those knots you get all day and before you can even unwind from your ten hour day slaving over your boss’ every whim your significant other says with words soft and stern, “We need to talk…” All your anxiety and over-thinking is ‘god’ shooting a booger in your general direction.

But I’m rambling. Maybe I’m wrong and whatever creator made this whole thing just left us to our business and we’re just dumb-fucks too ambitious and too overt-thinking for our own good. We want to believe in the best and have to or else we lose our self and go crazy, but I think over-ambition always gets us hook-line-sinker. The very concept of going out into the ever-expanding spill in space is too soon. We have enough to study on our own planet before going to learn about other planets and celestial bodies. We have barely touched the surface of our ocean life among any terrain that tickles your fancy. Why fill your plate when it’s already spilling over with food? It’s only going to embarrass you when you drop it all.

What would happen even if we found anything out there? Aliens would probably wipe us out or laugh at our incompetence and congratulate us for getting this far. A new inhabitable planet would only be useless and get our hopes up, and make us lazier and more violent with who claims what. What ever happened to just enjoying the night sky?

One of our biggest problems as humans is the desire to know everything. We need to be the best and the very top of the food chain at all times; a greed for all things to be known. Our primal fear makes us terrified of what we don’t know so we have to kill and dissect it until it is consumed by our hunger. As we’ve evolved and fought our way to be the head hauncho and so have our fears. Instead of fearing wild predators (which are still terrifying if confronted in person) killing us because we have feeble shelter, we fear on a more intelligent level. We fear the metaphysical and the philosophical monsters that can make and break our six billion and counting lives. How many insane people does it take to redefine sanity?

As soon as we can identify and affirm the possible creator, instinct will kick in and our need to be on top will kick in to high gear. Who do you think will win then? Is it wrong to accept that maybe we should accept our place and the best of it? Is it so wrong to not want to be at the top of the chain and leader? I’m happy with my job, so lady who said, “Oh, you must hate your job running around all day being your boss’ bitch.” Fuck you. I like my job.