Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
[From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions]
Long ago I made peace with my own level of comfort with darkness. It's not that I like nor prefer the dark to the light, but over time I found, through life experience -- including joblessness, disease, and relational discord -- that I was not scared by the darkness. I discovered something within my interior unwilling to make a "whatever-it-takes-to-get-rid-of-darkness" deal to provide temporary relief. I've learned a lot about God, myself, and life in the darkness. I seldom enjoy it, but I have made some sort of friendship with it, awkward as it may be.
So I was drawn this week to the Dylan Thomas poem, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night." I'm not so very familiar with Thomas nor his poetry. It is easy enough to find basic information about him, his life, and his poetry online. He lived a rugged, tumultuous life from what I have read, and apparently drank himself to death, literally. This poem references his father's pending death, while also likely including a good bit of autobiography.
Some commentaries on the poem propose that Thomas advocates a "kicking and screaming" approach to darkness and death, a kind of literal rage. Knowing something of his life, Thomas may indeed suggest a "raging-against" stance toward life's end.
I wonder, however, if rage is the wisest, most life-giving approach to the darkness. Darkness comes to each of us. Death will claim all of us. Rather, "rage" may more richly suggest a stance which does not lie down before the darkness, a posture in which even the darkness does not shut down abundant life. Perhaps the poem's wisdom moves us toward a way of continuing onward in creative living, even when life is shrouded in tumult. Do not go gentle, keep exploring, do not give up your own true self, do not stop creating, move toward your next discovery . . .
Showing posts with label darkness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label darkness. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2018
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
The Journey of Unknowing (part 1): The Parable
In the summer of 2000, I was newly unemployed and seeking direction for the days ahead. My spiritual director suggested an 8-day retreat to help me see more clearly where I was standing, and how I might step into the coming days. So I went off for an 8-day directed retreat (after the fact I learned it was a retreat with the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola), during which I met daily with my spiritual director. She provided me with scripture and material for reflection (from the Spiritual Exercises). I spent the days praying and meditating, then talking with her about my experience of prayer.
It must have been obvious to her that I had my life-plan mapped out. Though jobless, I had already decided there was a certain kind of person I wanted to be and a certain kind of work I wanted to do in order to be that person.
Early in the week, she handed me this parable, instructing me to pray with it for the next 24 hours.
Jesus also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”
(Mark 4:26 - 29)
Of course, I had read the parable before, in fact many times through the years. But its meaning had never been so clear. I was reading these words from a different place, and hearing them as if for the first time. The seed grows, whether the farmer is asleep or awake. The seed grows, not dependent on the farmer to know how it happens or to control the outcome. The seed grows, and the end result is out of the farmer's control.
Perhaps I could have reacted to this new revelation with dismay, but I did not. Rather, a flood of relief fell over me, a lightness of being I had never experienced. My life is not about how well I control it, how well I manage my surroundings and my situation, how well I manipulate the environment in order to get the outcomes I prefer.
Most humans are controllers. If there is a scale, I probably rate higher than average on the control-meter. I cannot say I was forever changed by this moment in the summer of 2000. It was a beginning point, but these 18 years later I'm still working out what this means for me, how to enter each day without squeezing the life out of it, how to go with the flow, how to surrender my tendency to manage people and things toward my desired wishes.
The spiritual life is, by definition, an endeavor of God's Spirit. Human knowledge and understanding are not the cornerstones of the spiritual journey. To be sure, you and I are invited into this life of connection with God which makes a difference in who we are with God, self, others, and the world. We are participants, and our intention to set ourselves to the journey is crucial. But according to the parable, we are not the final determiners of the harvest.
In fact, much of the growth of God's kingdom within us happens when we are in the darkness, when we are asleep, unconscious, unaware. I've come to believe this is so because for many of us, literal sleep is the only time we have our hands off the remote control, the only time we are not managing our world. We lay our defenses down and go to sleep . . . for a few hours giving God's Spirit an opening into our well-defended life.
[I've heard entrepreneurs and other people considered "highly successful" by society talk about how little they sleep at night because they are driven to be successful. Society at large applauds that ambitious drive. I wonder, though, if some of their sleeplessness is simply the fear of taking their hand off life's remote control, even to sleep . . . the anxiety that something may happen while they are asleep that they cannot manage or manipulate . . . so their fear masquerades as the drive to succeed!)
Through the years, some people have said to me this is why they will not participate in a silent retreat . . . because they would have to lay aside their newspaper, put away their cell phone, and be out of touch for a few hours. One person actually said to me, "What if something happened in the world while I was on retreat, and I knew nothing about it?!" It was impossible for her to imagine being out of control and out of "the know", even for a few hours.
In the landscape of the parable, Jesus describes a farmer who scattered and tended the seed, but who both slept and stayed awake, and who experienced that the growth of the seed did not depend on his efforts, nor on her understanding. It is a wonderful little parable, and a marvelously clear image of how spiritual growth and fruitfulness, are not functions of my planning, my manipulation, my management, my control, my expertise. Other forces are at work and other designs shape how the seed grows.
For today, listen to the parable for yourself.
What does it say to you about your spiritual journey?
What invitation do you hear in it?
Is there some action which would help you step more fully into God's invitation as you hear it in these words?
It must have been obvious to her that I had my life-plan mapped out. Though jobless, I had already decided there was a certain kind of person I wanted to be and a certain kind of work I wanted to do in order to be that person.
Early in the week, she handed me this parable, instructing me to pray with it for the next 24 hours.
Jesus also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”
(Mark 4:26 - 29)
Of course, I had read the parable before, in fact many times through the years. But its meaning had never been so clear. I was reading these words from a different place, and hearing them as if for the first time. The seed grows, whether the farmer is asleep or awake. The seed grows, not dependent on the farmer to know how it happens or to control the outcome. The seed grows, and the end result is out of the farmer's control.
Perhaps I could have reacted to this new revelation with dismay, but I did not. Rather, a flood of relief fell over me, a lightness of being I had never experienced. My life is not about how well I control it, how well I manage my surroundings and my situation, how well I manipulate the environment in order to get the outcomes I prefer.
Most humans are controllers. If there is a scale, I probably rate higher than average on the control-meter. I cannot say I was forever changed by this moment in the summer of 2000. It was a beginning point, but these 18 years later I'm still working out what this means for me, how to enter each day without squeezing the life out of it, how to go with the flow, how to surrender my tendency to manage people and things toward my desired wishes.
The spiritual life is, by definition, an endeavor of God's Spirit. Human knowledge and understanding are not the cornerstones of the spiritual journey. To be sure, you and I are invited into this life of connection with God which makes a difference in who we are with God, self, others, and the world. We are participants, and our intention to set ourselves to the journey is crucial. But according to the parable, we are not the final determiners of the harvest.
In fact, much of the growth of God's kingdom within us happens when we are in the darkness, when we are asleep, unconscious, unaware. I've come to believe this is so because for many of us, literal sleep is the only time we have our hands off the remote control, the only time we are not managing our world. We lay our defenses down and go to sleep . . . for a few hours giving God's Spirit an opening into our well-defended life.
[I've heard entrepreneurs and other people considered "highly successful" by society talk about how little they sleep at night because they are driven to be successful. Society at large applauds that ambitious drive. I wonder, though, if some of their sleeplessness is simply the fear of taking their hand off life's remote control, even to sleep . . . the anxiety that something may happen while they are asleep that they cannot manage or manipulate . . . so their fear masquerades as the drive to succeed!)
Through the years, some people have said to me this is why they will not participate in a silent retreat . . . because they would have to lay aside their newspaper, put away their cell phone, and be out of touch for a few hours. One person actually said to me, "What if something happened in the world while I was on retreat, and I knew nothing about it?!" It was impossible for her to imagine being out of control and out of "the know", even for a few hours.
In the landscape of the parable, Jesus describes a farmer who scattered and tended the seed, but who both slept and stayed awake, and who experienced that the growth of the seed did not depend on his efforts, nor on her understanding. It is a wonderful little parable, and a marvelously clear image of how spiritual growth and fruitfulness, are not functions of my planning, my manipulation, my management, my control, my expertise. Other forces are at work and other designs shape how the seed grows.
For today, listen to the parable for yourself.
What does it say to you about your spiritual journey?
What invitation do you hear in it?
Is there some action which would help you step more fully into God's invitation as you hear it in these words?
Friday, November 18, 2016
The Soul's Sadness and Love-Dogs
Within my soul I've felt a deep sadness in recent days. Something tender and unhealed within me has been touched by the world around me. My sadness has mingled with anger, and I've swung between the two in regular rhythms.
I'm also feeling desperate on behalf of others who are hurting in ways that are much more tangible (and real) than my own superficial difficulty, by those who regularly find themselves marginalized because of skin color, national origin, orientation, gender. A few of these persons I know by name, and vast millions have names and identities I do not know . . . but with them I nonetheless share a common life in this world. We are more the same than different, and of that I am confident.
This poem goads me on, presses me on down the path, pushes me to not give up or give in, says to me that even the sadness and anger of loss are full of union. Rumi's wisdom tills the field for connection.
Love Dogs
by Rumi
One night a man was crying,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said,
“So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?”
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?”
“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing
you express is the return message.”
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love-dogs
no one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them.
[trans. by Coleman Barks, in Robert Bly, The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures, p. 155 – 156.]
I'm also feeling desperate on behalf of others who are hurting in ways that are much more tangible (and real) than my own superficial difficulty, by those who regularly find themselves marginalized because of skin color, national origin, orientation, gender. A few of these persons I know by name, and vast millions have names and identities I do not know . . . but with them I nonetheless share a common life in this world. We are more the same than different, and of that I am confident.
This poem goads me on, presses me on down the path, pushes me to not give up or give in, says to me that even the sadness and anger of loss are full of union. Rumi's wisdom tills the field for connection.
Love Dogs
by Rumi
One night a man was crying,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said,
“So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?”
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?”
“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing
you express is the return message.”
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love-dogs
no one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them.
[trans. by Coleman Barks, in Robert Bly, The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures, p. 155 – 156.]
Monday, September 15, 2014
Thoughts about Genie-Gods and Darkness
The story is too long to tell today. In brief, while in a restaurant recently, I heard a monologue at the table next to me in which a person was "instructing" others at his table in how to get good things ("blessings") from God. This fellow described God as "a blank check" who is just waiting for us to ask for "all the treasures in God's storehouse." We don't have more, he said, "because we don't claim what is already ours."
I won't describe the mix of emotions I felt as this scene unfolded within a few feet of me . . . those of you who know me well will be able to guess a few of my feelings pretty easily.
What I finally came to as I walked out of that scene was the desire to reach out to the 5 or 6 people around that table and say, "You know, if this doesn't work out for any of you in the days ahead, come see me. Here's my card."
Because I know a whole bunch of people -- many of the folks I hang out with day in and day out -- for whom religion and cultural expressions of Christianity have not worked out. From old-school Catholics to prosperity-Gospel evangelicals to hard-shell Baptists . . . and everything else along the spectrum . . . I spend a lot of time with folks whose personal experience has not lined up with the teaching of a particular expression of the Church. Many of these folks have dropped out of organized religious expression, yet they have not given up on some expression of their faith. They wait and they hope. They are people of soul who long for something authentic that will not shrink from the darkness of our world -- or the darkness of their own interior. They are people for whom religious expression and spirituality are not an escape from the real world, but a healing engagement with it. They are people who take seriously the inner life and its expression in the outer world, not because it gets us "the treasures of God" as some kind of self-interested blank check, but because it connects us to a Source that is generously endless and life-sustaining.
I wanted to say some of this to those sitting at that table . . . to offer them a place to go and a people to be with when their God-as-Santa-Claus systems stopped working. Alas, I didn't intrude on their party, so I let them be. (I likely would have been written off by them as an infidel, anyway.)
The entire scenario, as I've reflected on it for a couple of weeks, has also reminded me of how much more appealing is a life of goodies and treasures, a life of all sunlight where a huge Genie-God makes all the roads smooth, takes away all the disease, removes all the stumbling blocks at work, gives us what we want on command . . . as if we shouldn't have to deal with difficulty, crisis, tragedy, or death. (In the Genie-God scenario, Jesus dealt with death, tragedy, and darkness so that we would not have to. His death means that we get the goodies.)
Maybe it's just my personality, but I tend to be drawn to those who are honest about both the darkness and the light. It seems to me that those who are in touch with darkness -- the world's and their own -- offer a tremendous gift to the world. They don't gloss over the darkness, nor do they run from it. They are comfortable in it, not needing to change it into sugar-canes and sweetness. Sometimes the darkness does get transformed into light, but those who can abide in the darkness do not demand that it be so in order to be happy. They find their happiness and delight regardless the weather.
I've noticed in recent years, for example, that poets who are familiar with darkness catch my attention. I've thought of all this today because I re-read a poem by R. S. Thomas this morning. Thomas was a Welsh pastor whose poetry is tinged in darkness. No, more than tinged, his poetry is immersed in darkness. It would be too breezy to call him a pessimist. I simply think of him as a realist, fully engaged with God and with life so that he doesn't hide from the difficult questions. He sometimes is comforted by God's presence, for example, but more often he confronts God over God's perceived absence. His poetry has the feel of the Hebrew Psalms that confront God and question God and demand answers from God, knowing that they may or may not come. And whether they come or not ceases to be the issue. At the core Thomas, like the psalms, engages God.
This is the poem I have considered again today. The last few lines are the lines I'm living with today.
Pilgrimages
R. S. Thomas
There is an island there is no going
to but in a small boat the way
the saints went, travelling the gallery
of the frightened faces of
the long-drowned, munching the gravel
of its beaches. So I have gone
up the salt lane to the building
with the stone altar and the candles
gone out, and kneeled and lifted
my eyes to the furious gargoyle
of the owl that is like a god
gone small and resentful. There
is no body in the stained window
of the sky now. Am I too late?
Were they too late also, those
first pilgrims? He is such a fast
God, always before us and
leaving as we arrive.
There are those here
not given to prayer, whose office
is the blank sea that they say daily.
What they listen to is not
hymns but the slow chemistry of the soil
that turns saints’ bones to dust,
dust to an irritant of the nostril.
There is no time on this island.
The swinging pendulum of the tide
has no clock; the events
are dateless. These people are not
late or soon; they are just
here with only the one question
to ask, which life answers
by being in them. It is I
who ask. Was the pilgrimage
I made to come to my own
self, to learn that in times
like these and for one like me
God will never be plain and
out there, but dark rather and
inexplicable, as though he were in here?
-- R.S. Thomas, Later Poems: 1972 – 1982 (London: Macmillan, 1983), 125 – 26.
I won't describe the mix of emotions I felt as this scene unfolded within a few feet of me . . . those of you who know me well will be able to guess a few of my feelings pretty easily.
What I finally came to as I walked out of that scene was the desire to reach out to the 5 or 6 people around that table and say, "You know, if this doesn't work out for any of you in the days ahead, come see me. Here's my card."
Because I know a whole bunch of people -- many of the folks I hang out with day in and day out -- for whom religion and cultural expressions of Christianity have not worked out. From old-school Catholics to prosperity-Gospel evangelicals to hard-shell Baptists . . . and everything else along the spectrum . . . I spend a lot of time with folks whose personal experience has not lined up with the teaching of a particular expression of the Church. Many of these folks have dropped out of organized religious expression, yet they have not given up on some expression of their faith. They wait and they hope. They are people of soul who long for something authentic that will not shrink from the darkness of our world -- or the darkness of their own interior. They are people for whom religious expression and spirituality are not an escape from the real world, but a healing engagement with it. They are people who take seriously the inner life and its expression in the outer world, not because it gets us "the treasures of God" as some kind of self-interested blank check, but because it connects us to a Source that is generously endless and life-sustaining.
I wanted to say some of this to those sitting at that table . . . to offer them a place to go and a people to be with when their God-as-Santa-Claus systems stopped working. Alas, I didn't intrude on their party, so I let them be. (I likely would have been written off by them as an infidel, anyway.)
The entire scenario, as I've reflected on it for a couple of weeks, has also reminded me of how much more appealing is a life of goodies and treasures, a life of all sunlight where a huge Genie-God makes all the roads smooth, takes away all the disease, removes all the stumbling blocks at work, gives us what we want on command . . . as if we shouldn't have to deal with difficulty, crisis, tragedy, or death. (In the Genie-God scenario, Jesus dealt with death, tragedy, and darkness so that we would not have to. His death means that we get the goodies.)
Maybe it's just my personality, but I tend to be drawn to those who are honest about both the darkness and the light. It seems to me that those who are in touch with darkness -- the world's and their own -- offer a tremendous gift to the world. They don't gloss over the darkness, nor do they run from it. They are comfortable in it, not needing to change it into sugar-canes and sweetness. Sometimes the darkness does get transformed into light, but those who can abide in the darkness do not demand that it be so in order to be happy. They find their happiness and delight regardless the weather.
I've noticed in recent years, for example, that poets who are familiar with darkness catch my attention. I've thought of all this today because I re-read a poem by R. S. Thomas this morning. Thomas was a Welsh pastor whose poetry is tinged in darkness. No, more than tinged, his poetry is immersed in darkness. It would be too breezy to call him a pessimist. I simply think of him as a realist, fully engaged with God and with life so that he doesn't hide from the difficult questions. He sometimes is comforted by God's presence, for example, but more often he confronts God over God's perceived absence. His poetry has the feel of the Hebrew Psalms that confront God and question God and demand answers from God, knowing that they may or may not come. And whether they come or not ceases to be the issue. At the core Thomas, like the psalms, engages God.
This is the poem I have considered again today. The last few lines are the lines I'm living with today.
Pilgrimages
R. S. Thomas
There is an island there is no going
to but in a small boat the way
the saints went, travelling the gallery
of the frightened faces of
the long-drowned, munching the gravel
of its beaches. So I have gone
up the salt lane to the building
with the stone altar and the candles
gone out, and kneeled and lifted
my eyes to the furious gargoyle
of the owl that is like a god
gone small and resentful. There
is no body in the stained window
of the sky now. Am I too late?
Were they too late also, those
first pilgrims? He is such a fast
God, always before us and
leaving as we arrive.
There are those here
not given to prayer, whose office
is the blank sea that they say daily.
What they listen to is not
hymns but the slow chemistry of the soil
that turns saints’ bones to dust,
dust to an irritant of the nostril.
There is no time on this island.
The swinging pendulum of the tide
has no clock; the events
are dateless. These people are not
late or soon; they are just
here with only the one question
to ask, which life answers
by being in them. It is I
who ask. Was the pilgrimage
I made to come to my own
self, to learn that in times
like these and for one like me
God will never be plain and
out there, but dark rather and
inexplicable, as though he were in here?
-- R.S. Thomas, Later Poems: 1972 – 1982 (London: Macmillan, 1983), 125 – 26.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
I don't think I know me . . .
A friend commended a folk rock group called Eddie from Ohio. I have a couple of their cd's, and am especially drawn to their song, "I don't think I know me."
The song rehearses a litany of ways the songwriter lives a "responsible" and upstanding life . . . faithfulness to dog and spouse . . . paying utilities (mostly on time) . . . mowing the lawn on Saturdays . . . believing in Jesus' words . . . saying prayers . . . attending the church on the hill . . . looking both ways at stop-signs . . . going on family picnics.
But then, with tongue planted in cheek, the writer records some very surprising things he has done . . . stealing a car for a joyride . . . taking a neighbor's Harley . . . driving the Harley through the potluck line at the family picnic . . . you get the drift.
The chorus, then, is the repetition of this refrain:
I don't think I know me
as well as I thought I did
I don't think I know me
like I thought I did
Couldn't any of us sing this refrain? Don't we all live under some kind of illusion about the kind of person we are?
You may live out of an interior script that says, "I'm terrible. I'm a failure. I'm a moral wreck. My life is a disaster. I'm a worm . . . a wretched sinner." And then you tell yourself -- and others -- stories that support this version of yourself. Sometimes, we even find that others want to confirm this view of us . . . family members, the Church, the educational system. All you know of yourself is that you are a mess.
Or you may live more out of an interior conversation that says, "I am responsible. I do the right thing. I am loyal and hard-working. I am successful. I follow the rules." So you, too, find stories about yourself that support this particular version of your selfhood. You work hard to appear successful, moral, and law-abiding, whether you truly are or not.
Most of us, then, hold either our shadow/darkness or our light. When we notice something about ourselves that is counter to our familiar script, we push it aside, or bury it somewhere deep within us. We get shocked. Surprised. We can even act hatefully (or violently) toward others in the world who have the qualities we ourselves have denied or repressed.
In that sense, wherever we are on the spectrum, we can say, "I don't think I know me as well as I thought I did." Some of our behavior will rise up to surprise us. We will scratch our heads and say, "Where did THAT thought come from?"
Blessed is the woman, blessed is the man, who can hold together both their light AND their darkness . . . who knows with a deep, inner knowing, that they are not fully either one ("either/or") but that they are both ("both/and").
I love the Eddie from Ohio song. It makes me smile. And reminds me that I never know myself as well as I think I do.
The song rehearses a litany of ways the songwriter lives a "responsible" and upstanding life . . . faithfulness to dog and spouse . . . paying utilities (mostly on time) . . . mowing the lawn on Saturdays . . . believing in Jesus' words . . . saying prayers . . . attending the church on the hill . . . looking both ways at stop-signs . . . going on family picnics.
But then, with tongue planted in cheek, the writer records some very surprising things he has done . . . stealing a car for a joyride . . . taking a neighbor's Harley . . . driving the Harley through the potluck line at the family picnic . . . you get the drift.
The chorus, then, is the repetition of this refrain:
I don't think I know me
as well as I thought I did
I don't think I know me
like I thought I did
Couldn't any of us sing this refrain? Don't we all live under some kind of illusion about the kind of person we are?
You may live out of an interior script that says, "I'm terrible. I'm a failure. I'm a moral wreck. My life is a disaster. I'm a worm . . . a wretched sinner." And then you tell yourself -- and others -- stories that support this version of yourself. Sometimes, we even find that others want to confirm this view of us . . . family members, the Church, the educational system. All you know of yourself is that you are a mess.
Or you may live more out of an interior conversation that says, "I am responsible. I do the right thing. I am loyal and hard-working. I am successful. I follow the rules." So you, too, find stories about yourself that support this particular version of your selfhood. You work hard to appear successful, moral, and law-abiding, whether you truly are or not.
Most of us, then, hold either our shadow/darkness or our light. When we notice something about ourselves that is counter to our familiar script, we push it aside, or bury it somewhere deep within us. We get shocked. Surprised. We can even act hatefully (or violently) toward others in the world who have the qualities we ourselves have denied or repressed.
In that sense, wherever we are on the spectrum, we can say, "I don't think I know me as well as I thought I did." Some of our behavior will rise up to surprise us. We will scratch our heads and say, "Where did THAT thought come from?"
Blessed is the woman, blessed is the man, who can hold together both their light AND their darkness . . . who knows with a deep, inner knowing, that they are not fully either one ("either/or") but that they are both ("both/and").
I love the Eddie from Ohio song. It makes me smile. And reminds me that I never know myself as well as I think I do.
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