Day 261 - dark qualities

I started a couple of little paintings tonight, ones that were of slightly odd, dark and uncomfortable subject matter that I've recently been dreaming about. I was worried these were negative aspects of myself that were going to cause me a lot of strife. But the more I painted the more therapeutic and calming I felt from it. I'm slowly realsing that there are so many parts of our lives, psyche, wills and motivations that aren't always 'light' so to speak. We all have dark aspects of ourselves, and sometimes we feel bad about this. It goes back to the post i wrote about flaws, only it goes a little bit further than that. Dark doesn't necessarily mean flawed, I see it more as taboo. We all have aspects of ourselves that we don't let the public see. That doesn't mean we should be ashamed of them. I feel bad a lot of the time when I'll indulge in things that are typically deemed as 'bad'. But who really makes those gauges? I think it's important that we all understand that there are taboo aspects to all of us, and that's part to the balance we all need to find. Ignoring urges is just as harmful as overindulging in them. And what that line is and when it should be crossed I'm a little unsure about. But i think the best part of maturity is understanding discretion, and refraining from beating yourself up over things that in the end cause no harm to you or others. Because at the end of the day, I think that's the only real universal gauge of anything.