I've been thinking, and dig this, I' may come to really understand the meaning of the phrase "know the white, but keep the black" much more deeply than before.
You see, (if you haven't noticed by my posting, and I don't expect anyone to really have been paying attention so, on with the explanation) I gave up on that whole "improve my life" thing rather recently, and essentially fell into despair and reverted back to my old nihilistic-addict mode of thinking. Today, for reasons I am not quite sure of (maybe it had something to do with Dostoevsky and a delicious Cohiba), I was lifted from my melancholic mood and was feeling pretty damn fine. Anyway, it came to me that the reason I failed was because I was trying to be too virtuous, or improve myself at the cost of the insight I've gained so far, to believe firmly in a particular worldview, when I know that no view is true (so I cannot accept even a particularly meritorious one). So it was in attempting to know only the white, the pure celestial yang energy, and all that Confucian stuff (or however one would like to phrase it), and reject not only my worldly desires, but the 'negative' parts of me and my interests when one cannot really be rid of the self so easily.
What I should have done is seek improvement whilst embracing my rather loose version of reality, and all that other stuff. In other words seek change incrementally, and through the world I have come to recognize, rather than try to change everything into a model where the end result is the only option. Ya'know, the path into the light seems dark, the path forward seems to go back, the direct path seems long, etc., etc. I don't think I've done a very good job of phrasing my thoughts of the day, but hopefully you get the spirit of it.
Of course, this may well turn out to be in error like my previous paths, since, I have come to realize lately, that as the depths of human ignorance are unfathomable, so too is my own stupidity monumental even when compared to that of my fellow humans. You'd think I've known that all along given my name, but I think back then I was only paying it lip service/seeing it as true on a purely logical level rather than really understand it.
Damn I've been rambling a lot, but someone has to keep the social thread warm at night...
I'll leave you with this: Like sadness, happiness can strike at any time, without warning. And in life one cannot escape either of them.