Afraid of the Dark

Most young children are afraid of the dark. As adults, we tend to dismiss those fears. But as in so many other ways, it is the children who are right…and we who are wrong. They have not yet wrapped themselves in the cocoon of consumer goods. They still see life as it is.

So too the poet: “Do not go gentle into that good night…Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” – Dylan Thomas

Have you ever noticed how common house flies prefer to hang out in well lit parts of the house, especially at night. They sometimes curl up in my home office, under a desk lamp, atop a white index card, and rock themselves to sleep, seemingly unaware of the threat I could pose to them if I chose. Do flies also dread the dark? At some level, do they have ‘intimations of mortality’?

Much later in life, certainly sometime after age 70, you will rediscover your primal fear of the dark. You will remember what it was like to be a little child in a dark bedroom. We return to the words of Dylan Thomas, “Old age should burn and rave at close of day.