Rational Insanity
Failing light
Many writers from the Elizabethan era as well as from the late Renaissance have chosen to write about the sunset and dusk. I've always wondered where their motivations came from when they wrote about this topic. Of course, this time of the day is very poetic considering its representations; but why not the morning (yes, I know, there are writers who write about the morning, but more write about its diametrical opposition), why not high noon?
Well, just the other day, I was walking home from the office and I think I found out the reason why most writers draw great inspiration from the sunset and dusk. Aside from the commonplace metaphors that represent death and the end of something, I think the sunset and dusk represent the hope that most people attach to the morning. I hope I am making sense here. While most people seek to use dawn to represent a new hope, or a new beginning, I believe that dusk has much more claim to this representation. Let me explain to you why… In the case of death; where dusk represents the end of life, it is not really an absolute end that is materialized here, but a validation of a cycle that exists upon dusk's beginning. No writer would use something that has ended absolutely to represent death because whether we like it or not, almost all writers are romanticists and refuse to accept anything absolute. There is no absolute end for writers. The sunset is used to represent an end, but not an absolute one; or more specifically, the sunset is just USED TO REPRESENT that end, but not to validate it. What is the difference, you might ask. Well, a representation is like a flag that has other meanings to the trained eye, while a validation is a confirmation – a validation is absolute, while a representation leaves room for interpretation. Therefore, along these lines, we could say, that when writers choose their subjects, they would most usually choose something concrete enough to be tangible, but also malleable enough to allow the audience to wrap themselves completely around the subject and not feel alienated. Whew! That was a mouthful; anyway, let's go back to the real topic here, the sunset.
My personal experience with writing about the sunset has taken me from a terribly written poem to a story that stank of over-ripe mangoes. It is very difficult to write about the sunset because there is no approach to the subject that has not yet been utilized by earlier, better writers. Now, what use has the sunset for me as a writer, now that there is nothing left about it that I could write about, like love? Well, very simply put, like love, the best thing that we writers could do about the sunset is to draw emotions from it – emotions, that when concretized in any other way, might actually give us something that could actually work. For instance, when looking at the sunset, we can easily dig into our psyches and feel how tired we have become from the grinds of every day life. In the same manner, we can look at the setting sun and see how the light that exploded from the sky only minutes before has succumbed to an inevitable night – humility. Greatness fades. Everything fades, but what remains intact is the knowledge, that the sun is part of a cycle, and if it has been replaced by a blanketing darkness when it finally sets, it actually lights up another part of the globe – rough representation, not of the sunset but of this particular phenomenon: when I have left you in the darkness that follows my demise, bear in mind that it probably is time for you to allow me to share with others what light you enjoyed from me. Naks! Napaka-lalim!
What is the purpose of this entire article? Well, frankly, wala. I just got to my keyboard and decided I would like to write about the wonderfully coined phrase 'failing light'. In closing, to help you with your literary attempts, I would like to leave you with a few points of thought – all related to the sunset and 'failing light':
Does light really fail? Or is something merely blocking it's path? Do we really lose light when the sun sets or do we simply enjoy a different form of it? If light fails, will we still have rainbows? Stars? The moon? When light fails, do we lose love? Hope? Kindness? Joy? When light fails, does it really?
Be rational; be insane… every once in a while! TTFN!
I love you all! Byers!