How I Came to Love Night

Topic

How I Came to Love Night

I believe that most people are afraid of night and darkness when they are young. And I am one of them. Even some adults are still afraid of the dark because it gives people a sense of endlessness as if it will swallow the whole world. As a child, watching horror movies and listening to stories about ghosts were frightening enough to deprive me of the ability to go to the bathroom alone at night. When I was young, I went to one of my best friends' birthday party. It was kind of boring and then someone suggested that we could watch horror movies. Some faces did showed unwillingness but nobody including me stood out and said no. Therefore we started to watch. The movie title appeared on the screen with blood and then a little girl with no face was walking in the dark forest and the background music was strange and dreadful. I suddenly closed my eyes and covered my ears with my hands trying not to hear or see the terrible sound effects and the horrible scenes. But driven by curiosity, I moved my fingers apart in order to leave a space, and then listened and watched thrillingly. I can still remember some of the melodies of the background music and some horrible scenes which will never vanish from my mind because they are extremely dreadful. A dark rainy night, a dark corner of the room, a dark damp street -- nearly all of the events appearing on the screen of the horror movies are surrounded by endless darkness. After watching the horror movie with my friends, I became more afraid of dark nights. I think many people can understand how I felt when I was a little kid and had experienced this kind of ambivalence: Being afraid but at the same time curious.

I can still remember lying in bed as a child hearing the horrible sound of wind through the gaps of the door or windows, like the plaintive groans from apparitions. I would cuddle up quietly, hiding myself in the blanket because I was afraid that my every act was so obvious that those ghosts and demons would notice me and take me away.

However, I am no longer afraid of dark.

As I have grown up, I have learned more and more about the dark from teachers and books. Science clearly explains to me why it is dark at night and why the wind sounds so horrible for me. The dark night is merely because of the absence of the sunlight. The sound was just because the air forms convection from gap to gap. Darkness is just a common natural phenomenon and is not necessary to fear at all.

I have started to think that my fear in the past was completely ridiculous. Moreover, I am ashamed for my attitude towards the dark when I was a little kid. We human beings are species which originally lived without light at night. We are not supposed to be afraid of the darkness. Instead, we should embrace it for we have lived with the accompaniment of the dark for myriads of years. The invention of the light bulb was outstanding because it enabled people to work or to do things they wanted