I see no evil when I look at my shadow. I see nothing sinister in it as it reclines on the ground before me, patiently waiting for me to start walking again so it can follow me. It follows me loyally everywhere I go, like a pet dog, stretched out on the ground at my feet or on the wall beside me. Even at night, it blends silently and peacefully with the darkness around me as I sleep. No amount of light can ever scare the shadow off. The shadow is untouchable, unbreakable, firmly rooted by my side. Everywhere I go, my shadow goes. Everywhere my shadow goes, I must lead. It cannot do anything unless I do it, too. Therefore, when I look at my shadow, I see no evil.
It is a bright, sunny day, and you are out for a walk outside. Everything is bright--the sky is an intense shade of blue, the grass is bright green, and the pavement sparkles, nearly burns in the sunlight. When you look upward, the sun shoots its scorching rays directly into your eyes like radiant beams of fire. So you look away, and just as you think you've escaped the blinding light of the sun, you encounter the cars in the parking lot, where tinier suns reflect off the paint and blaze their way into your view. The blinding, burning fire of the sunlight is almost inescapable. But when you look down, your shadow is dark and cool, a source of calm amid all the dazzling brightness. It is the only thing that the fire of the sun cannot touch. You sigh with relief--your eyes have finally found solace from the sun's fire.
What is in a shadow? I'm sure most people would say nothing, that a shadow is merely the absence of light, but is it really? Physically, it is empty, but it knows no hunger--unlike its counterpart, the light, which perpetually starves for attention, shining brightly in the sky, on neon signs, and in houses. But is this all that a shadow has to offer--emptiness? Or is there something more? What is it about a shadow that makes it so alluring and--to some people--fearsome?
A few years ago, I had a dream. I was at my grandmother's house with my mother and siblings. For some reason I was going off by myself. I walked down the hallway, looking into the guest bedroom to my right. It was the same as it had always been...at first. The bed was still in the corner, and the tall, dark wooden shelf still stood firmly against the wall. But then I noticed that, at the back of the room, right in the middle of the wall opposite the doorway, there was a dark-looking secret passageway that let to a room I had not been in before. There was no door; it was a simple, short dark hallway that turned to the left at the end. On the right wall was a very small patch of cold, dim, blue-gray light, but the rest of the hallway was covered in motionless shadow. My curiosity got the better of me: I immediately headed down that passageway, and when I reached the end, I saw yet another passage. But just as I was about to head into the room beyond, I heard my mother call to me: I was not allowed to go in. I desperately wanted to get in there, and I tried to find a way to do so without my mother finding out, but before I actually could, I woke up.
Ever since then, I've been wondering what my subconscious would have put beyond that passage. I have had many such dreams, and I like to imagine what could be behind those doors: more hallways, secret rooms, treasure. And if this is how I react to a dream, you'd better believe I'd go down that passageway in real life--that is, if I could do so without being caught or getting in trouble.
If that room in my dream had been well-lit, it would have spoiled everything. If the room had been well-lit, everything in it would be completely visible. I would have seen it all and lost interest within a minute. The mystery would be gone, and the dream would have been merely another boring dream. That motionless patch of shadow on the walls and the darkness of the corridor beyond prevented me from seeing what was inside. It prompted me to wonder what it was like in there, what I might find. It forced me to use my imagination.
Imagination! There's a novel idea! I often wonder what has become of the imagination these days. It seems to me that, more and more, people are losing their sense of curiosity and are more concerned with knowing than imagining. Symbolically, our society prefers light over shadow. The dark holds uncertainty and doubt inside, and where there is doubt, there is often fear. We, as a culture, do not like fear, so we push that darkness away for the more favorable light. We cast out the ambiguity for absolute certainty. We switch out the imagination for Google Search.
