I talked to my nephew today, he's afraid of the dark. Or was. I said, Why are you afraid of the dark? In the darkness we find many beautiful things! He said, Like what? And I said, Like the Moon and the stars! We would never see them without the darkness! And have you ever been to a movie house before? Do you think it would be as fun if it wasn't dark inside? And all the creatures under the sea— they're always there, swimming beautifully in the darkness of the waters! And he said, Bad things like ghosts are just fairy tales, right? Then I told him, Even if there were ghosts all around, they would not change in the darkness; they would be just the same as they are in the light. Look, we live in a world where there are bad things but there's no difference between these things whether they are in the darkness or in the light! Everything good and bad is always there; what changes is what and when we can see them. And the darkness brings us many beautiful experiences that we wouldn't be able to see in the light. And then I gave him a piece of my son's meteorite stone, I told him that whenever he feels afraid in the dark, he can hold onto it and it should remind him that many beautiful things, like that meteorite, come from the darkness so there's really nothing to ever be afraid of.

~ C. Joybell C.

Well, there is a piece of famous advice, grand advice even if it is German, to forget what you can't bear. The strong can forget, can shut out history. Very good. Even if it is self-flattery to speak of strength--these aesthetic philosophers, they take a posture, but power sweeps postures away. Still, it's true you can't go on transposing one nightmare into another, Nietzsche was certainly right about that. The tender-minded must harden themselves. Is this world nothing but a barren lump of coke? No, no, but what sometimes seems a system of prevention, a denial of what every human being knows. I love my children, but I am the world to them, and bring them nightmares. I had this child by my enemy. And I love her. The sight of her, the odor of her hair, this minute, makes me tremble with love. Isn't it mysterious how I love the child of my enemy? But a man doesn't need happiness for himself. No, he can put up with any amount of torment--with recollections, with his own familiar evils, despair. And this is the unwritten history of man, his unseen, negative accomplishment, his power to do without gratification for himself provided there is something great, something into which his being, and all beings can go. He does not need meaning as long as such intensity has scope. Because then it is self-evident; it is meaning.

~ Saul Bellow