The Darkest Places | Teen Ink

The Darkest Places

August 5, 2013
By IsaacR SILVER, San Diego, California
IsaacR SILVER, San Diego, California
7 articles 0 photos 1 comment

(Written 2012)

Life is interesting
Not merely interesting; fascinating
Fascinating to observe
And so very interesting

I like this picture here
Not for the picture itself
But for the cultural implications—
so fascinating—
And the social implications
What a picture, what a picture
I love art because of this;
So many implications are there to observe
And all so interesting

My friend’s a romantic
He says love is the only reason for life
He’s immersed himself in his emotions
I wish I could tell him how dangerous that is
Life was not meant to be immersed in
But to be observed
And it’s so fascinating
I don’t understand how he doesn’t see it

World War One, The Great War
What a truly interesting experience
We discovered the manifestation of modern savagery
And it is so fascinating
What a pleasure to study
I don’t see the point in getting emotional about it
When there’s so much to be interested in
All the social and political and cultural implications…

END.


The author's comments:
This is one of the few poems I have outgrown almost entirely. Here are four bitterly sarcastic verses written with a fever bordering on hatred; at the time I wrote this poem, I held in my mind a notion (partially true) that the word "Interesting" carried with it a piece of Satan himself. For a long time, "Interesting" signified detachment from Life, an emphasis on "observation" rather than experience. I pictured in my mind a sociologist, unmarried, laughing at his friend who proclaimed himself to be in love with his wife, forgoing the beauty in art and seeing only the cultural implications, unable to sympathize with victims of travesty and feeling only a detached interest in the political outcomes of their sufferings. For a short period of time, this "Interested Man" was the subject of Dante Alighieri's quote: "The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis." I have since learned that "Interest" in life is a beautiful thing; there are, after all, so many things to be interested in. Without interest, there would be nothing. The true victim of my anger was apathy itself, which I mistakenly assumed to be found in the usage of "Interesting." Still, I maintain, there will always be an unsettling aura of moral ambiguity surrounding those who proclaim a World War to be first and foremost, "Interesting."

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