Shadows on the wall

I got to thinking about those who call themselves "Goth" a little more today, and what that term really means. I think as we grow, we go through some really tought times as kids. We tend to repress a lot of anger and hostility to the world, our parents, and our peers. We get some choices on how we cope with those extreme stressors. One way to cope is through spirituality, and the seeking of the light path. Another is to fully embrace our darker selves.

I believe both paths can be somewhat dangerous, for the one tempers the other. Too much white light, and there is a path of righteousness, but no true understanding of who we really are. To much darkness, and we succumb to our baser selves, never knowing a full path either.

This path we walk on is a hero's journey, much like has been described in movies and legend, and by Joseph Cambell. The reason movies like Tarzan, Star Wars, and others are so popular throughout time, is that both light and dark paths are shown, giving the characters more depth as we follow their choices, for good or bad. Horror movies, too, show us the darker side of our being. Zombies, werevolves, vampires, and other monsters all represent the shadow places in us all.

In our society, we are always told to seek the light, mostly through religion and morality, without ever being able to understand that which we repress, deny, or otherwise do not come to grips. We also don't have a much of a mechanism to cross over from being children to adults, which in my opinion, allows us to take in to us that darker part of our existence. This change comes when we must leave our mother's ams show our parents we can stand on our own as adults. These rites of passage exist in many primitive cultures even now, and they are working their way back into our society as well. Much of the piercing and tattoos I see on our teens these days is clearly their manner of a rite of passage. These rituals are played out every day, but are not always a good crossover to adulthood, because the parents must also recognize the change.

The lack of some sort of rite of passage for our children often leads to a lifetime of anger at the parents and society in general.