Adventures of Light and Dark

Read the graphic novel → About five minutes. Swipe or arrow keys.

Why I wanted it

Years ago I wrote a first-person story about self-doubt. Not conquering it. Sitting down with it, the way you would sit across a campfire from someone you have been avoiding, and having the conversation. It sat in my notes for a long time, and I kept coming back to it.

It wanted pictures.

What happened

In January 2026 it became a short graphic novel: forty-seven panels in ten acts, about darkness, light, and finding balance. It was an early experiment for me in creative storytelling with AI. The story is mine. I broke it into acts and panels, described each scene, and had AI draw the pictures, then built a small reader for it that works on a phone, swipe to turn, nothing else to learn. The words in the panels are the story, cut down to a line at a time. The full story is below, as I wrote it.

What it looks like

Dark pages, small figures, a lot of negative space. The darkness is drawn as a place with geography and weather, not as an absence. The beasts in it are terrifying when you run from them and dignified when you sit with them. Same creatures, different relationship.

What’s next

I have more of these in me. The campfire keeps showing up in other things I make, so it is clearly not done with me.

The original story

This is the piece the graphic novel came from, unchanged.

Darkness always comes from behind, overtaking as if competing with the light. When I was young the darkness was more consuming than the light. I had much to learn. While young I challenged myself to learn how to escape the darkness, how to stay in the light. This journey came to me in stages.

There was value in realizing that the events happening in the light and darkness were something that happened within my own mind. No matter my state of mind (light or dark) my reality was the same, it was my perception that shifted. If I spent too much time in the light I could become arrogant, over-confident, and ungrateful. If I spend too much time in the darkness I found self-doubt, discouragement, and envious of others.

Within the never-ending cycles of day and night there is balance. As is the case with the light and darkness.

I began to understand that I could drift between the light and darkness and began to have some control over this process. As a young boy I didn’t want to spend any time in the darkness. I developed skills to keep my mind in the light. Anytime the darkness came I knew I could force my way to the light by forcing my mind to behave as though it were light. Think positive thoughts, exclude any thoughts of doubt or those envious thoughts of others. And when it came to discouragement I learned that I could become active, get outdoors and hike, cycle or otherwise challenge myself and these behaviors would more quickly bring the light.

This did not maintain balance.

Not understanding what to do and not liking the darkness, it was scary, it was unpleasant and always associated with tough times. The darkness brought things out of me that others didn’t like, that others would not find appropriate. I found no reason to stay in the darkness.

As I grew into an adult I started to realize there is value in the darkness. I had begun to realize the darkness is a good place, not bad. Scary, yes, the darkness has great power and that power can be very scary.

There were still many questions. This balance, how was it maintained? How do you spend your time in the darkness and use it to maintain balance? After all, it was the darkness that brought so many dreadful things in my life.

One of my journeys into the darkness I decided to embrace it and see what there was for me to learn. As I laid there, unable to sleep and completely engulfed in the darkness I closed my eyes and let myself sync deep into the darkness.

As I look around I see some very familiar sights, some very scary sights. Self-doubt, as if a huge beast standing there beating its chest towering above me. Then, as I looked back behind me was discouragement, that bottomless pit of quicksand. Then there was fear rearing up like a raging fire of darkness. Just as I saw an unfamiliar face off in the distance I realized something I had learned many years ago, this is all in my head. This is uniquely my journey and the challenges here are mine to face. I can handle this, I am in control.

It was that point when I realized I had a choice about what happens here in the darkness. As I looked around at all the familiar faces, it was Self-Doubt that I singled out first. I sat down and invited him to join me. We discussed a good many things. Yes, these things were scary and unpleasant and at the same time enlightening and even encouraging. Through this process I realized another way to bring the light.

As the transition from darkness to light came I realized another lesson, personal growth. I realized that by sitting down with Self-Doubt and really looking at what he had to say I was able to face some of my flaws and discern ways to make improvements. No, these changes won’t be easy, changing one’s core is never easy, but it is possible.

As I’ve gone through these cycles of light and dark over the years I’ve learned a few other things.

Balance isn’t spending an equal time in both phases. Balance has to do with embracing the darkness and learning what it must teach. The darkness isn’t something to be feared, it’s something to be embraced. This is where true growth is made. How much time you spend in the darkness has more to do with how long it takes you to learn what is to be taught.

There is more to the darkness than this. When you begin to build and maintain balance you become a light for others, a sort of beacon. This help comes in the form of encouragement, understanding and support. When you can help others through their darkness and journey back to the light they are given the ability to return the favor and help you when you’re in the darkness. Don’t get me wrong, your journey into and back out of the darkness is still your journey, meaning that you’ll still need to put in the work and walk the path. Others around you can then bring encouragement, understanding and support. These are things often hard to find in the darkness.

The tricky part here is the maintenance of balance. Spend too much time in the light, don’t embrace the darkness when it comes then you’ll fall out of balance. You’ll lose your ability to produce a healthy light for others. Seems reasonable right? Oh, it is… it’s reasonable but it isn’t as easy as it sounds. No matter how good you get at the darkness it’s never pleasant, if it were it wouldn’t be the darkness. No healthy person enjoys the darkness, so it’s not so easy to maintain balance.