The Devil has two horns, two hooves and a tail. He is hairy and his tail ends up in a trident. How do I know that? Well, everybody knows it, like everybody knows that God is good.  Did I ever see him? You mean, the Devil? Well, I haven’t quite seen him, but I did suffer the sharp blows of its horns – or maybe it was a kick from his hooves, or a whip of his tail, or a punch with his pitchfork – or all together. The Devil is a very energetic, well armed entity, as I could see for myself. I never really considered the stereotyped fellow with red cloak and pitchfork until I got his mighty blows once in my left elbow, once in my chin (I still wear the scar), and another one in the arcade of my right eye – and I consider myself lucky, because it could have been much worse. What’s more, it rendered me infinitely grateful.  For all my skirmishes with him along the years, I can swear, even though many of our human fellows may not believe me, that he is an intelligent, sensible fellow. Far from being the “darkness incarnated” of  the urban legends that made people see an alleged diabolic image taking shape in the smoke of the burning twin towers, and which many have blamed for being behind the mind of the reckless authors of the crime, the Devil means no harm.

All this is true: my skirmishes and final pact with my own demons is just an allegory for the process of transformation that was sort of being forced upon my psyche, helping me to finally grasp and come to terms with crippling, life-long issues of anger and pride – among many other ones, of course. By virtue of some natural mechanism, I slipped gradually into a crippling depression, only to discover years later that it was to become my greatest blessing. I was forced to confront myself with my deepest fears, struggle against my fiercest demons, shed light into my darkest corners, only to uncover my grace. This helped me see the beauty of the realm inside, of which I had no idea it existed, in first place. Our inner demons, condemned by our religions as sins, potentially render us blind and insensitive to the meaning of existence

In fact, we should be honest with ourselves and  brave enough to confess, not only in the secrecy of the confessional, but admit it openly in our social media profiles our (so far secret) indulgence for the once seen as “deadly sins”, lust, greed, sloth, gluttony, envy, anger and pride. 

The fact that  Fifty Shades of Grey has been making tsunami waves lately is speaking stories. One hundred million copies in a three-year lapse of time is an unprecedented figure in sales. But here’s the facts and figures: “Fifty Shades of Grey has topped best-seller lists around the world, including those of the United Kingdom and the United States. The series has sold over 100 million copies worldwide and been translated into 52 languages, and set a record in the United Kingdom as the fastest-selling paperback of all time”.

Maybe this is our society’s new way to purge itself?? When it is about passions, the solution nowadays seems to be: “go with it, burn it into cinders! before it burns you! It’s either you, or IT (read it: ID).