Chaos is the nature of all things. Balance is the will of all things.
Where darkness spreads, so must the light.
Let’s first look at this literally and through our own eyes.
The universe is comprised of too many renditions of matter and wavelengths and an absence of things to name in this short article. What we can see in the universe is a result of how we perceive light. The visible spectrum of the human eye is rather minuscule, and because of this we are witness to an absence of light in such places as our shadows or when we peer into the vastness of space. Light is photons. We cannot see individual photons with the naked eye, but they are what lights up the sky, reveals a flame, emits from a lightbulb, and twinkles in the stars above.
So what is darkness? Is it merely the absence of light? It depends on our perception. Darkness may be nothing more than a label we put on what we cannot see. Think about it. The sun lights up our world, the moon, and we can even see its light reflected upon the other planets in our solar system. Why then can we not see the solid rays of light which travel across space to reach our world or the other planets? Is there only darkness in these places? No, of course not. Light travels in wavelengths beyond the visible spectrum in which our bodies have evolved to perceive. Here is a table from the Wikipedia page on the electromagnetic spectrum. This table represents all of the wavelengths for known photons and displays the classes that we can see.
Spectrum of Light
As you can see from the diagram, we cannot see most of the light spectrum. Some animals can see a bit further beyond either end of our visible spectrum, but no living thing is known which can see all forms of light.
Over at Space.com they have tried to breakdown just how much light is in the universe, at least the visible universe. To sum up their findings as briefly as I can: there is all of the light created from stars and galaxies and everything we can see, but that amount of light is nothing compared to the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Old light. Ancient light from the early stages of our universe which has cooled and spread itself throughout space. It still exists and we can detect its radiation with our technology. How much light is in the CMB? As Paul Sutter at Space.com puts it:
The CMB…created a whopping 10^90 photons. That single event, that transformational epoch, released more photons than every star that has ever burned in 13 billion years.
To put it in gratuitous perspective, for every one photon made from stars, there are around 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 leftover from the early universe. I may have missed a zero, but would we even notice?
And we can’t see it. If our eyes could see the radiation from the CMB we would be in a consistent haze of blinding light, so intense that we would be unable to actually see anything else. Thankfully our eyes have their limitations.
Had enough science talk? Ok. The point is that what is both light and dark is relative to our thoughts and our physical limitations. So why is this article about balance?
Let’s move on from the literal to the literary.
Without darkness, what is light? The day would have no contrast to the night. We would not be able to appreciate the beauty of a nebula or fantasize about the emptiness of space.
The Pillars of Creation: what are they but a beautiful blend of darkness and light?
The universe is ruled by darkness and light. When one overpowers the other worlds are destroyed. In their balance there is life. That is what we have here on Earth, a harmony of light and dark. We need both to live. Comfort can be found when a person lies down on a beach towel to bask in the day’s sun, or when they lie down to sleep in a warm bed during the darkness of night. Danger can be found in the form of a burning flame or a dark alley.
This boils over into our stories where darkness often represents evil and light is what is good. We label things as good and evil in order to make sense of them. In reality, though, is there a true evil? Or are there only desires, needs which are out of balance. Let’s step away from good and evil and stick to our original terms.
Imagine that you are creating a story. Whether based in reality or fantasy, you are creating a world which has not yet existed. Your situations and interpretations have not ever truly happened or been created by another. This is your world. Darkness does not yet exist on this world, nor does the light. There is only absence.
To fill that void you must create. It is in our hearts to wander and to wonder. With ourselves we bring pain, joy, sorrow, pleasure: a balance of things. In our stories we strive for balance, because it is our will. We fight against chaos. We fight against the darkness and the light until there is a conclusion, until their is a balance. People often associate themselves with light, but when we open the doors to other worlds we bring with us the darkness. It is within all of us.
A universe without balance.
Cannot exist.
Real or imaginary, a place with either full light or darkness is a void, literally and metaphorically. The balance can shift, as it often does, but it remains intact at all times. In ourselves and in our creations we impose our will to shape our own stories, to find our own inner balance. Darkness is not evil. Light is not good. Either can destroy, but only together can they create.
