Staring Down Malevolence: Integrating Our Darkest Selves

There is a fate worse than death, and that it's living to hear eulogies for the person you could have been

It's difficult to know what is truly real because we don't have complete knowledge. The assumptions we make about what is most real shape the decisions that guide our entire lives, whether we realize it or not. 

In our modern, scientific culture, we assume that physical matter is the fundamental layer of reality, and meaning or purpose are just subjective illusions. However, this view cannot account for consciousness or how potential becomes actuality.

There may be other ways of looking at reality that have advantages. One view is that the things that appear most meaningful to us are the most real. This aligns with how our brains naturally perceive the world through meaning before abstracting objects. Poets and children seem attuned to this "shining forth" reality.

The assumptions of our modern worldview can lead to pathologies like nihilistic hopelessness from seeing life as meaningless. Worse, distorted belief systems in the 20th century led to catastrophic ideologies causing massive loss of life. If belief systems become pathological, they pose an existential threat that must be dealt with from an evolutionary survival perspective.

When we fall in love or interact with children, we temporarily bypass our usual filters and experience a glimpse of a more profound, meaningful reality shining through. Sustaining that state requires tremendous moral effort, but offers a way to connect with deeper realms of being.

There is a strange paradox, recognized by Buddha and also present in Christianity. The solution to dealing with tragedy and malevolence in the world is to be willing to directly face them. This seems completely paradoxical - how could confronting such darkness be the answer

But it works because the more you confront the chaos and malevolence, the more you can grow as an individual. Perhaps you can grow large enough to encompass and overcome the chaos and malevolence itself. What's the evidence for this? It's what people naturally do as we learn and adapt.

Every time you expose a child to something new, like a playground, you are exposing them to a form of chaos and malevolence. Yes, there is also play, friendship, and positive social structures. But the playground itself contains the complexity of the social hierarchy and the malevolence of the bully. You throw your child into that setting and tell them to adapt - and they do

So we can clearly adapt to chaos and malevolence on that small scale. But can we scale that ability up to the cosmic level - to adapt to the chaos, order, and malevolence of existence itself? I don't think there's any reason to rule that out. We don't yet know the full extraordinary extent of human potential.

This process is worked out in the Buddha story. When his sheltered world collapses after repeated exposure to aging and death, Buddha realizes the "walled garden" society his father created is fatally flawed. Such protection cannot truly exist.  Children go through a similar process - venturing out, discovering limits, returning to parents for guidance, until eventually they hit limits their parents can't solve.

At that point, the child faces the same existential crisis as the archetypal Buddha - how will you operate in this chaotic, archetypal universe? Parents can model admirable archetypes, but cannot ultimately solve that problem for you without making you weaker.

One pathway to developing your full capacity is to confront the bitter truth about yourself - to observe and integrate your own resentment, bitterness, and dark fantasies when you don't get what you want. This can be frightening, to admit you have such aggressive impulses. But integrating them into your character allows you to access a very forceful and dangerous part of yourself.

The paradox is that by staring down the chaos and malevolence within yourself, you develop the strength to stare down the chaos and malevolence of the world. This reactance allows for endless growth of the sovereign individual.