Member-only story
A Pantheon of Dark Gods
The unsettling landscape of adolsecence
I was an atheist when I was in high school. I had believed in God throughout my childhood and in fact felt close to Him and felt loved and protected.
But with my teen years came angst, depression, and nihilism. I read Camus and found comfort in works like The Plague. I listened to Pink Floyd obsessively. If I had been a different generation, it would have been Nirvana, perhaps. I would listen to Don’t Fear the Reaper over and over.
Suddenly dark avatars ruled my nights.
I wore black exclusively, but part of that was growing up in New York City.
I would find my late nights fueled by bouts of ambitition interspersed with the knowledge that I would never be good enough.
Others were prettier, smarter, more popular. I was a maladjusted misfit, yet most of the time I came across as cheerful. I had my own followers within my sphere of influence. I was odd enough to find niches that were unique enough to draw attention.
Yet attention was not what I craved. I wanted to be ignored, to be left alone to work on code through long nights at the computer lab, or to totally cut loose at parties without caring how I looked.
