Day 91 - Doppel Story

Doppel Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

They called it double walking. You entered your shadow and saw your soul and when you came out on the other side you knew who you were. That was the promise. That was the temptation. That was the addiction, for the shadow showed you more than you ever thought possible.

“You are the shadow and the shadow is you. It is not your morality or some guardian angel. It is not a repressed consciousness. It is you from another place, another time or another world. It is you that knows what you should know, will know or can’t yet know. It knows so that you don’t have to, but so that you can learn.

Enter your shadow and learn the secrets you don’t even know to ask.”

They assumed, as a great many had assumed, that the shadow was an aspect of the unconscious, a person not fully conscious, recognized or realized. What they failed to understand was just because an aspect is not yet recognized does not mean it doesn’t live, grow, change and evolve just as the recognized side does. Had they realized or had the forethought to ask, they might have understood that they didn’t always want to know what existed on the other side.

“The shadow is a necessary dual. It is a part of us. It is a guide. It tells us where we are going or where we could go.”

No one stopped to think what the shadow truly was, if it was really an alternate or a window or a portal of some sort. They assumed an alternate showed a truth that was worth knowing. They assumed a window was like a mirror and it would reveal and reflect. They assumed that a portal could be crossed safely. No one asked what happened to you when you saw. No one thought that perhaps man was not meant to know or questioned what the knowledge would do to them. No one asked what happened when you crossed over. No one thought they couldn’t come back. No one thought that in looking or touching or passing through they would be changed.  They assumed that all they were to see was their own unrealized, unconscious self and in that instant they would be given some form of answer. They would have fared better to err on the side of caution. Perhaps not all answers are meant to be known.

“Despite our best efforts, the effects are quite fleeting. All we get is a taste of the other side and like a dream it begins to fade almost as soon as it has happened. Some people go insane from the experience and the inability to remember and return. Like an addict with a tolerance, it is impossible to experience the same experience twice. There will be no going back, no ability to be the same, to remember what is different or to forget that something is different. It will nag at you and tear you apart, it will tempt you to try again, just so you can have a moment of knowledge, taunting you when all it gives in return is ignorance. The mystery is insatiable. The attempt to solve it is the measure of your soul. The failure to ever complete the task will give you the burning drive to repeat. The repetition will create the transformation. The transformation will never be complete, leaving you with that anxious state of limbo of the half-realized.”

It was chasing the shadow. Trying to recreate that one spectacular moment of bliss. Like all addictions, it was impossible to ever have the same experience a second time.

“We are the half. We are always half. Even if sometimes that divide does not equal fifty percent. We are always two parts even if only one part exists during a given moment. We are always the answer to the question and the question that must be asked. We are the split between the soul and the rational, spirit and natural instinct, the abstract and the concrete.”

Sometimes you look at the shadow and the shadow looks back. Sometimes you shine a light into the shadow and truth is revealed. Sometimes you go looking for life inside the shadow and you never come back.

 “Live in the shadow for in the darkness you can see the light. Without light there can be no shadow. Without truth you can’t even see that the lies exist. Without knowledge there is no ignorance. Without the mystery first there can never be a solution. Venture into the shadow. Learn all that can be done or undone; what was or wasn’t; what was decided or accidental. Know thyself, as the proverb goes, so that you may become what you didn’t know was possible.

The more you know the more you realize you will know nothing and that nothing is constant or decided. The more you believe is set, the more mutable and changeable everything becomes.”

Everyone thought they were following their shadow, living in their shadow, and learning from their shadow. No one wondered if the shadow could follow back. It had no name, they weren’t even aware of it. If they had been aware of it, they still wouldn’t have known what to call it. But it was shadow stalking. The shadow was learning. The shadow was growing. The shadow was realizing there was more to existence than just being the shadow. Everyone had plans to learn from their shadow. The shadows had plans of their own.