Purity s Shadow 
Johannes Kieding
Honors English 200-CC1
Professor Dunning
Fall 2008
Research paper
Due: 12/18/08
Purity’s Shadow
I am large. I contain multitudes.
-Walt Whitman
I wished the two girls to have some sign on their person as a warning to every young man that no evil eye might be cast upon them. What mark should the girls bear so as to sterilize the sinner’s eye? This question kept me awake for the night.
-Gandhi
As the green Earth darkens when turning away from the sun, so too the human soul forms a shadow as it turns toward one thing and neglects another. The mere fact of our selective attention – the gravitating movement to focus on ‘this’ and not ‘that’ – suggests the origin of the darker regions of the soul. The analogy of a flashlight comes to mind; the light of consciousness illumines whatever is attended to, leaving everything else in obscurity. As gold and silver deserve to have their integrity as unique substances respected, so do humans understandably try to uphold the purity of their given inclinations and values. Sectarian paths of all kinds come from this need to uphold congruency, and our many different schools of thought in both science and religion are the result. The price of purity is truth, however, for where purity demands homogeneity, truth contains multitudes. Whether we seek spiritual transcendence and deny our primitive biology and human needs, or conversely if we deny a yearning for truth by soothing ourselves with excessive indulgence, exclusively opting for one in lieu of the other costs us actuality in its full. Holding polarities such as altruism and instinctual drives, love and hate, work and play, with equanimity, proves a difficult feat for many. The moon births creatures of night, while the sun delivers animals that rise at dawn. These two different animals, our inner impulses, branch off into different directions; each inspired by its own light, sun and moon – or right and left brain, to use a less poetic equivalent. Human
Honors English 200-CC1
Professor Dunning
Fall 2008
Research paper
Due: 12/18/08
Purity’s Shadow
I am large. I contain multitudes.
-Walt Whitman
I wished the two girls to have some sign on their person as a warning to every young man that no evil eye might be cast upon them. What mark should the girls bear so as to sterilize the sinner’s eye? This question kept me awake for the night.
-Gandhi
As the green Earth darkens when turning away from the sun, so too the human soul forms a shadow as it turns toward one thing and neglects another. The mere fact of our selective attention – the gravitating movement to focus on ‘this’ and not ‘that’ – suggests the origin of the darker regions of the soul. The analogy of a flashlight comes to mind; the light of consciousness illumines whatever is attended to, leaving everything else in obscurity. As gold and silver deserve to have their integrity as unique substances respected, so do humans understandably try to uphold the purity of their given inclinations and values. Sectarian paths of all kinds come from this need to uphold congruency, and our many different schools of thought in both science and religion are the result. The price of purity is truth, however, for where purity demands homogeneity, truth contains multitudes. Whether we seek spiritual transcendence and deny our primitive biology and human needs, or conversely if we deny a yearning for truth by soothing ourselves with excessive indulgence, exclusively opting for one in lieu of the other costs us actuality in its full. Holding polarities such as altruism and instinctual drives, love and hate, work and play, with equanimity, proves a difficult feat for many. The moon births creatures of night, while the sun delivers animals that rise at dawn. These two different animals, our inner impulses, branch off into different directions; each inspired by its own light, sun and moon – or right and left brain, to use a less poetic equivalent. Human