Vantablack.
// The darkest material humankind has invented — enabling light.
Lost Sight in Light.
The lightbulb has become this universal symbol for ideas. “Light” has been crowned the solution, and “darkness” the evil stepmother dethroning light. Plot twist, light is more often found in the dark.
It all begins and ends in the dark. What becomes displayed in light is just a polished version of an answer. The real answers are pioneered by the ones brave enough to dive deep into the darkness. Eventually, they will always resurface from the shadows to share their insight and be rewarded by momentary light. But once they have encountered darkness, they are hooked on the drug of depth. Light only lasts genuinely for a second, then the curtains must close, and the addicts go searching.
Once the applause subsides, muffled inside the walls of conformity, silence fills the room. The only leakage escaping the perimeters of a boxed-in reality. Light evaporates into the night, and the discernment between rough corners and round surfaces fade.
Two options are simply left standing: trust the system or trust yourself.
The ones who trust their own intuition will return back to darkness, sinking deeper to gain new depth. While, the lost ones will float to the top, growing shallow from seeking the validation of light. They will continue to put on a show, while the others go back to rehearsal. The result is stagnation. Lost sight in light. It's deceiving.
The greatest acts are first performed behind closed curtains. When the curtains open, the performance is only being repeated. Remember this the next time you're on stage, the applause will fade, and you will be left standing a puppet to light.
The addiction will kill you.
The Answers in Darkness.
Somehow, finding answers seems easier in a vacuum, especially if it’s really dark.
The truth is we have never seen complete darkness as a human race. Vantablack is the closest scientists have come to imitating a “black hole”, but it falls just short, still absorbing 0.0035 percent of visible light. When applied to surfaces, the human eye can’t even distinguish texture. It leads me to ask:
Does seeing form enhance or distract our ability to see clearly?
I think there is always a simple answer, and an even more simple answer, a philosophical answer and then there is my dad’s laborsome abstraction of a third grader’s maths problem (I kinda like the ring to the British vernacular, so felt the urge to throw it in where I can, sorry for the ingenuity, but I dare you to engage in my snobbish attempt at reenacting an innate hereditary predisposition of what I would argue to be superior). They all merge into this intricate and utter misunderstanding of the world. Yet somehow, it is in the midst of this pure ignorance that we tend to discover our true potential, and even more miraculously continue to plow forward in the completely wrong direction despite the flashing signals our bodies send us. Our minds are blindly in pursuit of an answer, disconnected from sensation. Disillusioned by light we convince ourselves that we have been led astray, only to at the end of our life realize that this seemingly unnecessary process is the disguised answer. The outcome is just the decoy. Unless death is the answer you seek.
But in the bigger picture of things does it really matter that we are lost in darkness, and misled by light? The world is like this massive light, randomly moving through the darkness in anyways. We comfortably navigate light but we are all really just lost in the darkness of the greater universe, moving in an unknown direction.
For the sake of our own sanity, we may as well engage in the prospect of finding solutions and believing in light. If not for anything else, but to gain a hefty dosage of patience listening to a man who studied financial mathematics so lovingly transcend logic. But hey love is infinite, so why can’t problem-solving or rather problem creating be too?
The dichotomy of Vantablack is a remarkable gift to a writer, it almost feels a little too easy. But I will accept it and politely say thank you. Because guess what Vantablack “reduces stray-light, improving the ability of sensitive telescopes to see the faintest stars.” So, in the process of inventing the darkest thing known to humankind, we enabled light. A bit cheesy, I agree but it’s too good to be a coincidence, its a hint.
Our answers will always be incomplete, but for those of you who continue to seek conclusive answers, keep seeking, because 0.0035 percent is revolutionary close enough.
