Walking down a deserted street was scarier than he thought.
A single street lamp cast an obstinate glow as a mockery against anything else covered with mere darkness. Yet this darkness was not the cause of fear in Jonas’s eyes, the lamp, perhaps, was to blame.
The light forced him to eventually meet the unknown dark side of his personality, the shadow. Since he was a little boy, Jonas knew all too well that a shadow is not solely a shape devoid of light. Shadow is in our psyche beyond our control, and until now, he had been the slave of this autonomous force of nature. Jonas, all of a sudden, felt like an infant who was obliged to be born into a cruel world he never asked for. He ran as fast as he could to ignore the dark aspects of his, which indeed looked very vibrant and well-present. No matter how far he went, he would never escape from the harsh reality. After all the hustle, he was done fighting himself.
Jonas tiredly stared at his reflection, the face seeming like a stranger's. Where had this evil been lurking all this while? A wave of nausea washed over him as he kept gazing at the unfamiliar face. “This...this was also me,” he flinched in his mind. He felt betrayed by what he assumed his character was. This face of pure malevolence made him realize that his portrayal of himself is mistaken and incomplete. However, to be fully conscious of the shadow, Jonas had to embrace those traits that appear to be loathsome to other people.
His denial slowly gave way to an anguished acceptance, in which he interpreted shadow not as an enemy but as something essential like a breath or blood. The path to true awareness, Jonas saw, was not in streets lined with lamps but in the dark labyrinth of his own heart. And so, with such decisiveness he'd never experienced before, he reached out to accept the shadow, to welcome it home and let its power run through his body.
At this moment, Jonas understood, he would never be the boy who ran away from the sight of himself. The light had not destroyed the shadows. It revealed their true beauty. And in this radiance, he did not find terror but completeness and power far greater than he had ever thought possible.