The Modern Contrapasso
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” — Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy : Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso
And thus it was revealed to me, on this murky path of our age, a most melancholy truth : that to see a soul with Heaven’s vision, is to become an outcast among men.
It is not you that they fear, it is the gaze that you wield, that is, a gaze that strips the gilded lie to the bare bones and exposes that spirit naked. For the vast majority of humankind, do not desire the burning light of truth, but the comfortable shadow of the compliment. They crave the sweet murmur of the crowd’s admiration and they run away from the silent grace of being fully seen and understood.
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And thus I saw the multitude of souls, not in a flaming Inferno, but in a gleaming and airless prison of their own design. Each willingly drank from a cup of sweet delusion, toasting and glancing at their own brilliance in a distorted mirror.
Herein lies the modern contrapasso : the greatest curse, it is not to walk this earth alone, but to be the bearer of a lit candle in a sunless palace of mirrors, to observe all who live there choose each day to honor the reflections and to curse the one who carries the flame that might have set them free.
