State of mind

When I was a kid my dad, a scientist, taught me a simple trick to overcome my fear of darkness. He said, "everything's as it is. Only there's no light". It made sense to me. You see, the moment there is darkness, our eyes tend to imagine shapes instead of simply seeing them. To me back then, it helped a great deal when my father implied that "you don't have to imagine anything because everything is as it is. Nothing changes."

I'm not afraid of darkness. For me, darkness is just another state of being. And I taught that to my daughter the other day when she cringed, entering a dark kitchen. I switched on the light and then off again. On and then off again. To her tiny li'l mind, what it meant was - Light or no light. It's no big deal. It's just a matter of playing with a button. She smiled and walked in when I switched off the light once again. She swung back sharply and I thought, 'here goes my lesson', expecting her to wail the next instant. But there, standing in the darkness, her eyes shining from the street light outside, she said confidently, gesturing "appa? ba. It's ok." (Appa, come in).