Walking In Darkness

"Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost"
– Dante's Inferno

Last night, I was angry and did not know why. It wasn't hunger or fatigue. I suspect it had to do with my new exercise regiment. (I find that I am euphoric after a workout, but then if I am inactive for 48 hours, I get agitated and punchy.)

After barking at my wife over something ludicrously trivial, I decided enough was enough. I put on my shoes and went for on a long walk. At night. In Los Angeles. I walked north until my boil calmed to a simmer. Then I walked west until my simmer cooled to something near room temperature. At at that point I started home.

Los Angeles is a city with bipolar disorder. During the manic daytime, everyone seems fit and golden and healthy; by night, they are the living goddamned dead. Tattoooed, pierced, pale, skeletal, desperate, filthy. It is as though all the pretty Eloi are asleep, and the night is ruled by the dreaded Morloch.

I imagined getting mugged or worse as I passed every dark alley. I had $5 and an ID on me. Slim pickings for an urban criminal. How would I react? Was it foolish to take the walk at all, or was it foolish to walk in fear? Thankfully, the mugging never came.

I also thought of Dante's Inferno, of walking through a never ending landscape of suffering and horror. The imagination, in such a situation, becomes perversely intrigued to see how bad it can get. And I realized that the Inferno is a mental landscape, not a literal landscape. When we are angry or depressed, we see the world through filters that convert it into hell. And when we are happy, our perspective shifts and we find heaven in everything, like citizens of Oz strolling around with emerald green glasses.

When I got home, I measured my walk on GoogleMaps. It was 5.5 miles. I felt tired, but good. Alive and strong. Something had changed about my perspective. It was as though I had walked through the Valley of Darkness and, as a result, everything seemed brighter.

Hamlet's world is dark a the start of the play. His father is dead. His mother has betrayed him. And his death is in the cards. Claudius has usurped his birthright and will scheme to disinherit and kill him. That is his world. And he must change his perspective on his own existence to summon the father within and master his world.

When he returns from England, it genuinely feels like this transformation has taken place. He harbors no ill will, and can take up a sword with grace and gallantry. And when death comes, as all knew it would, he faces it boldly and beautifully. By the end, I like him. I forgive him all his dithering.

Maybe that's just how I see it now, in the bright light of a beautiful Sunday morning as I sit in a restaurant. And my porcelain coffee cup feels like heaven on my lips. And a three year old Korean boy looks over from the next booth to play peek-a-boo, a glimmer of Buddha in his shining eyes.

Ask me again after sundown.