How do you cope with the darkness of the world?

In answer to Quora question: https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-cope-with-the-darkness-of-the-world/answer/T-Collins-Logan

Assuming that by "darkness" you mean all that is negative, destructive, antagonistic or "evil" in the world, it seems as though we have a limited number of options...

1) Avoid differentiating between darkness and light, constructive and destructive, good and bad from a place of naive ignorance...so that we can envelop ourselves in denial and self-imposed moral paralyzation, otherwise remaining as passive as possible.

2) Rail against darkness, attempting to exorcise it from our lives and from the world, and aim to amplify the light in all of our thoughts and actions.

3) Honor and amplify the darkness itself, striving to exclude the light altogether, so that we become the devoted servant of the dark, acknowledging and embracing its important purpose in the great journey of being.

4) Accept the darkness as part of ourselves, without judgement, and begin to heal the impulses and patterns within that contribute to destructive, harmful and antagonistic outcomes, hoping to continually transform darkness into light.

5) Gain insight that perceives all darkness as containing light, and all light as containing darkness, so that the co-infusion and harmonization of both - and maintaining that balance over time - is the most constructive response.

6) Gain insight that darkness is just love trying unskillfully to be, and that the more we engage darkness with love, the more it can help it mature into the first glimmerings of light.

7) Abandon ourselves to the light stream of affectionate compassion, so that darkness becomes a mere shadow, a projection of things we do not understand as we pass by them, but which do not affect our course or the radiance of our liberated consciousness.

These were hurriedly composed and are likely incomplete, but I'm sure you get the idea. I believe your question invites a choice - one that we all must engage as we pass from childhood to adulthood, and one that keeps presenting itself in new ways as we continue to mature.

My 2 cents.

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