Black Planet, Dark Matter, Creepy Writing by John Ross Barnes

There is a new planet.  Ok, the planet's not new, our knowledge of it is. The thing is,  - "bum-bum-bum-BUM!" - THE BLACK PLANET.  It's the blackest thing we've ever seen.  It absorbs light from it's star in ways physicists don't really understand. Our universe now contains stuff much blacker, darker, than we had ever previously imagined.

Big Deal. Well yes,  in a way it is a big deal.  We thought the universe was a certain way, and it's not. That kind of thing is happening all the time now. Rate of change, rate of knowledge, keeps increasing as it does, exponentially.  We thought we knew what black was, how things that were black acted regarding light absorption and reflection.  We've recently learned differently. It means there are things out there that just don't act at all like we used to think things would, could or should.

 And then there is - "Bum-bum-bum-BUM!" - DARK MATTER . Oh, You know, that Stuff! That stuff that we can't see, feel, touch or even measure other than by it's gravitational pull on other stuff. That elusive stuff that makes up supposedly eighty(or some other humongous) percent of the universe.  No, not Anti-matter, that's another story, different (anti)stuff, for another time. The illustration at left is one example of how Dark Matter light bending gravitational distortion is distributed throughout one piece of the Universe.  Don't worry, we probably don't have dark matter here on Earth. Much. Earth is too full of all the regular stuff we sort of know and kind of think we understand. So, eighty percent of the Universe is made up of Dark Matter that is completely different from the stuff we know and love - life as we know it here in our cozy galaxy.

We humans generally espouse loving light. Sunshine, "Shine your light on me", bright colors, the light over the dark, "light a single candle against the dark", you get it. But much of  new literature coming out, as well as much of other media of late seems pretty dark.  Dark as in bad stuff happening to characters,  stuff that is just plain creepy.  I mean all kinds of dark characters doing all kinds of nefarious things to all kinds of victims, heroes, distressed damsels, clueless fellas, vampires, werewolves, zombies, puppies, kitties and... Sorry, I digress.

It may seem that there's a lot more  Creepy Stuff in more of our writings. This is a bad thing, right? No. It's not necessarily a bad thing at all.

Our writing simply reflects our worlds, our minds, the things we finds(yes, finds-I couldn't resist-sue me).  Not only is there a lot of dark, creepy, scary stuff actually going on in all our surroundings,  it's pretty much coming at us at a seemingly exponentially increasing rate. Yikes! It spooks me just to start to think of it.  As long as our writing, our "make believe" stories are darker and scarier than what we  perceive to be happening in reality then the reality can't be as bad as things could be. Especially if in our personal and collective make-believes the good guys at least usually win.  The Natzis may come back, but the likes of Indiana Jones will always prevail.

There is also the cathartic effect of either writing or reading, watching or otherwise experiencing similar to the dark stuff we actually live with, that we grieve and that we fear. It's Therapy.

Walk it out, Talk it out,  Shout and Scream and Shake it out. You know what I mean, I've seen what you dream. It's all the same play, just a different scene. D'oh! There it went again! Man, I've got to get that beastie reined in, huh? Or not.

Then there is the point that the dark, bad, scary stuff is where our stories get their conflict. It's where they get their drama, what makes them interesting and exciting and what in fact creates our heroes.   Let's face it, nobody cares if Jack and Jill went up that hill until they each took a spill. If it weren't for the dark, there would be no concept of light.

Plants too, need an appropriate measure of real darkness to most effectively process the chemical reactions begun in the light. Otherwise, they'd be photorespirating away too much of the chemical products they're working to make. You remember, the Calvin Cycle of photosynthesis? Yeah, me neither.

It's even in the Bible, which regardless of one's religious leanings, is a well written epic(though sometimes it drags). "In the beginning was the void, and the dark moved upon the waters", etc. -  and then the "Let there be light" bit.

That's one line of thinking, or was it more? Oh well, how about another take on it, just for grins ...

All the new stuff, all the exciting and interesting stuff, is out there in The Dark.  Not as much new it seems to be found in the sun drenched meadows, as much as we love them, as good as the sun feels.  In The Dark, the Shadows, the In-Betweens, is where the proverbial action is. It's where the magic mushrooms grow, where the shaman and the wizard and the galactic overlord ply their respective craft. And that also, is why so much of what we write is in the dark, scary, wild and mean places.  Well it is.

Whether or not we are comfortable dealing with the scary, painful,  mean, or just mysterious  stuff that we find in the dark, both within and without, it is ultimately a good and necessary part of our stories, and of our lives. Balance is the key.

As a parting thought here's something good from towards the end of those sociologically dark ages known as the eighties:  Mr. Robert Cray - Don't Be Afraid of The Dark, 1988