Shadows Of Ourselves Forum Where is the discussion

Is the group just to voice that you like the dark side?  Or is there a purpose to the group?  I was looking for a place where discusion and creation could meet and blend.  I want to practice writing in an ongoing movement to experience and dive into the minds of others.  I love to get into the warped side at times, finding the secret pit where everyone has considered something out of the ordinary.  It is sort of like when you watch the news and see a crime go wrong, doesn't the writer in you think and consider how they could have done it differently to be able to keep from getting caught??  Or plot the perfect murder, like the movie with Sandra Bullock.  Then there is just the crass side of the villians in stories, how you love to hate them.  If you know of a group or a site that has this someone please let me know.

 

Discussions are very much welcome here. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I haven't been able to do much lately, but I'll try my best to kick this off. What fascinates you about the darker side of human nature? For me, it's the absolute irony that comes from the dark sides of people. For example, even the nicest little boy, with straight-A's, and the perfect parents could commit a murder just because a person picked on him too much. That kind of dark side fascinates me because it breaks down stereotypes and opens people's eyes to the real truth that anyone can become a killer under the right circumstances.

I agree, the human mind fascinates me.  I knew a kid who seemed to have it all together, a strong family, strong in his religion, a good friend, and he shot himself.  They were never really sure if it was an accident or not, there was no reason for him to have the rifle out.  What was going through his mind?  Then there are the people that are actually diagnosed with mental disorders.  Can you imagine the world that is going on inside of their minds?? Things like that really get me going.  If you ask a person about their vacation they will tell you different things that were important to them, the things that they remember most.  The same goes with a tragic event, people only see what they can relate to.  It makes you want to dig deeper into the mind to see and feel the sensations.  Have you ever contemplated the perfect crime or murder??

Yes, I have done that many times. It's usually aimed towards my enemies and I never get caught, even after I die. Ah, but those are mere fantasies, so of course I would expect everything to go perfectly. That also fascinates me-the knowledge that human beings have the potential to do what comic book villains can. One of my teachers recently said it was scarier to think of Hitler as an ordinary person that you could pass on the street and ignore than it was to think of him as some psycopath who went to far. Why? My guess is that, like most people, he was afraid of the thought that any person could bring the world to its knees. And I think most people try to block that knowledge out and that, in my opinion, makes them a lot vunerable than if they were to accept it.

The all too familiar psychological questions... lol I love to analyze people, as you very well know Michael, and to you Druella, I am one of those people diagnosed with a chemical imbalance but I have learned to cope with the mild diagnosis that I have. I have watched shows, real and scripted, about murder that have made me wonder why the murderer was caught. Also how to prevent being caught. In some of my "daydreams" about my revenge I have found myself getting caught only because I told the authorities what I have done. But then there has never been any evidence. Even in my daydreams I have made every detail, every movement, every possibility of being caught seen as not to get caught unless I desired it. My Mum, older sister, and I have watched many shows about murder and how the subjects were caught and I know what not to do to stay out of jail/prison. Also, I have honed my personality to help with my appearance as an innocent, harmless, sweet individual and it has worked to a certain degree. There are some people who have known me a little too long to be fooled by my persona but would join me in my actions if I asked them to. Those people are very few, *cough cough* Michael. lol ^_^. There are days when I feel overly happy and excited and then at the switch of classes I feel like murdering every person in sight not because they have done me wrong (sometimes people I've never seen before) but because I had an impulse. Most of the time I have to think about what my actions will cause and the consequences of those actions only to be pulled into my mind's eye of detail, decision, and reaction of the people around me. But by then my impulse has passed. Sometimes I fear I have actually committed my impulsive fantasy to find out with a weird relief that I have not killed or harmed anyone... yet.

The realm of the soul . . . Tis a good thing I am here. Who better to help you as you seek the inner workings of the human mind? Psychology is a facinating study, with it's own rewards for those who can see them. My favourite part is challenging culture and moral behavior with logic. Why do peole form morals? Is it the yearning for significance in their lives?   One thing I notice is the closer you get to the Paragon of Good, more and more does it look like the Paragon of Evil. It's like a circle: on one end is the unbaised, the person who is neither good nor bad. On the other end is the extremist: the person who is both entirely good and entirely bad at the same time. How does one become Good without becoming evil? Hmmm? And what defines Evil? Why does good seek the extermination of it? How does Good make itself any better than Evil if it desires the same thing as the other?   Interisting it is, how people seem to fixate in their head how they are ultimately 'Good' . . . My perspective is to remember nobody is above the laws of this world. We all can fall, and we all can be corrupted. Therefore we must remain vigilent to walk the knife's edge between the two. Never forget what path you take: Life and time are both the same; they come and go in an instant. Who is to judge between good and evil with the hours of their lives? For in death, all men are equal . . .     Omega Mavros "The End is Black"

I like your theology Writerski7; even though I do not believe in the typical right from wrong, you make sense. It all really depends on the person whether or not something is good or evil and that is one reason why I have such a hard time with religion. What one person believes is wrong can be different from what someone else believes is wrong. I think that is why there are so many wars. Also, any belief of right for one person will always put that one person on high because if he or she is the only one who knows what is right or wrong in their aspect, then he or she is the only one who can follow it the way it is supposed to be followed. That is why I believe a person should only do what they think is necessary, whether kill or not, merely by their gut feeling because most of us humans have that ability and usually they are the same gut feelings. Morals and values are not always religious either. My dad for example is an atheist (some people say atheism is a religion but that can be argued later) but is one of the most relaxed, nonjudgmental, and respectful people I know. He may play around and joke about things that others may think to be racial at first glance but he will also be the first one to laugh at a joke about himself or his color. So, the shadows of ourselves may never be understood by others only because the shadows themselves are who or what we have created... what society has created... what religion has created.

I agree. An even more stunning question is is there really a good or evil? A shadow to the light? I read this book today called Remember Me by Christopher Pike and in it, a dead girl is confrontated by her "Shadow" which exhibits all of her personal hatred within herself. From that thought, is it possible that, like Lord Voldemort said, "there is no good or evil, there is only power"? Logically, that statement is true. Good and evil are opinionated words. A majority may say that Spider-man is good, but a majority can range from 51%-99%. Nothing like that is truly ever fact. So therefore, is it not possible that we, as human beings, came up with the terms "good" and "evil" as a way to mask the inner desire for power, and the methods of attaining it? If you call someone evil, they feel bad. Why? Evil is associated with demons and warlords. But if someone were to respond back "I am not evil, merely an idealist who knows no boundaries," what could anyone say to that?

I have to agree. One statement that I grew up with was that hate was kin to love; because both are equally consuming.  Good and Evil are equal in that same aspect; but as with everything in life it is open to interpretation by each individual. 

So let's take this one step deeper; let us examine the nature of balance and how that applies to humanity. All humans desire love; am I correct? Yet we all seem to possess hatred. Therefore I ask, what is love and hate? If Love is a stong positive emotion towards something, is not hate a strong negative emotion towards something? And is it not possible to have such emotion towards something that you both love and hate it? Similiar to Smeagol from Lord of the Rings; he loves and hates the Ring; but he doesn't feel nothing towards it. Therefore which is darker: burning hatred towards and individual, or simply not caring whether they live or die? And what about killing something out of love (yes, it can and has been done)? Is that not equally, if not darker, than the other two? However, on the subject of good and evil I must resort to the nature of light and shadow: Darkness is simply the absence of light, as nothing is the absence of something . . .    Therefore as light is finite, darkness is eternal . . .

True, darkness is indeed eternal, since light cannot ever be everywhere at once, whether that is in a bedroom with a six-light chandelier or the souls of human beings. These desires to love, hate, kill, make love to, will always exist. And as long as positive emotions exist, negative emotions will be created.

Who said light is good? Isn't that nothing more than an assumption? Light requires energy, therefore it cannot be sustained forever. In essence, light will eventually die out and become extinct as energy is depleted into extinction. Darkness, however, requires no energy. It is merely the absence of light. So, might I ask, Is good the absence of evil? Or is evil the absence of good?

I would say evil is the absence of light, because like you said, light can eventually disappear. In that sense, that must mean that darkness came first, with light being created to achieve "equilibrium" as scientists put it. But there never is equilibrium, is there? If that was the case, there'd be a lot more murderers in the world than there are, right? So equilibrium itself may just be another false hope in which humanity has poured its heart into out of fear that what we are most afraid of may not be destroyable, merely overshadowed for a small amount of time.

I would have to agree with dark angel, they are just words.  The word love is percieved in general as a good word, but a lot of seemingly bad things are done in the name of love.  People kill for love, smoother a person out of love, spoil, cherish... We have all to some degree joined the mainstream of accepting words as the moral binding that has been given to them.  As a writer we have the opportunity to see the true insides of the words and their meanings; because we can chose how another person interprets a word or a feeling.  We can create hate to be a form of love by making the reader enjoy the sensation of emotions that go into hating someone.  If you thought about the emotions that you feel with both words how could you turn them around???

Let me try this again. If you are anything like me, you usually don't write words as words, moreso you're trying to convey the feeling those words are often associated with. Hence why I often go into paragraphs describing an emotiion many label as Love. I am not conveying words, but emotions, feelings, ideals and passions. If you simply write Love as a word and never a feeling . . . It speaks for itself. It's the emotion and the ideal behind the word that give it power. Of course, you can seperate the word from the emotion; but then what are you really writing then? A science report? Literature without emotion? After all, it's the ideal behind the word that gives it the power to be more than merely words on a page. Some of the best poetry in the world was born simply to describe the meaning of the word Love. If it was just a word; if all those ideals were simply word, then poetry would not exist . . . Dark Angel, Druella. The fact you are writers means you believe this, despite what you stated above. Dark Angel moreso since peotry doesn't exist without the ideals and emotions behind it. I await your reason/opinion/accusation of how wrong I am. Sincerely, Writer

writer- we are actually in a way agreeing with you.  As a writer you could pick any existing word or create your own word and how you describe it, the emotion, the feeling all of that makes another person understand the word.  More often we use the words that are already there, but how we use it can determine the meaning for us and the reader at that moment in time. To simply say a character paused, tells a reader that they stopped or held fast for a period of time.  You could describe Love- an all consuming feeling for another character, the mushy heart a flutter feeling or you could describe it in the all controling, it's us or no one, a sadistic possession.  How you describe a mushroom, would decide whether or not it is a good or bad thing.  As a mushroom it is a nutrient packed delicacy of flavor and substanance, or it could be described as the fungus that it is, something that grows off the death and stench of dying organisms.  Maybe we aren't getting what you are really trying to get at, but I see it as we are agreeing with you. Please re-iterate if you are trying to go in a different direction.

Haha, I was just a little shocked when a few writers began saying 'words are just words', and completely disregarding the ideas behind them. I know to most they're nothing more than ideas on a page, but to me those are Ideals. I don't look at a story and see a bunch of words, I see a world, as complex and intracate as the world we live in every day. The less an author goes into detail the more my imagination runs free filling them in, and if they go into great detail I enjoy them all the more because they're there. I don't know; maybe I'm the last of a dying breed. Though little more than ink on paper, to me there will never be 'words on a page'.