When I moved back to Italy in 2015, I made a simple decision: I would not get entangled in the petty politics and ongoing drama that seemed to dominate public life—unless I wanted to actively participate. And I didn’t.

Before that, I had been angry. Cynical. Disillusioned.

In my early twenties, I watched the political games unfold—the Machiavellian maneuvering, the corruption, the lack of integrity—and I rejected not just the system, but almost my own identity. During the years of Silvio Berlusconi’s leadership, I carried shame: shame about the power structures, shame about how women were portrayed in Italian society, shame about the values that seemed to dominate both politics and society.

I believed we were supposed to be better than that. If we called ourselves an advanced democracy, then we should have acted like one.

At university, I often admitted that, yes, I was Italian—but I didn’t feel much belonging to my own nation. Studying European Political Economy at the London School of Economics only sharpened that contrast. Many people understood my frustration. Some sympathized. Some—particularly American classmates—teased me lightly about it. I didn’t always appreciate the joke.

Fast forward fifteen years.

The political turbulence I once associated with my own country has spread across much of the world. Many of my American counterparts now experience their own versions of political disillusionment with Donald Trump.

But beyond national politics, something deeper is happening. As a species, we are facing a more fundamental question: What values are embodied by those who hold power? And can we still trust the systems we live in?

Over time, I withdrew from news consumption. I built a quieter life. I chose carefully what information enters my mind. Most of my focus goes toward personal development and inner growth.

Then one evening, curiosity pulled me in. I began reading about Jeffrey Epstein after seeing discussions online. That decision led me down a rabbit hole.

At first, it felt like lifting a veil—about life on this planet and life beyond our planet. Then it felt like stepping into something colder than I had ever imagined. Not just corruption and moral failure—something darker. What I encountered felt more like inversion.

It is one thing to accumulate power through manipulation. It is another to derive pleasure from domination through cruelty, to reduce innocence to currency, to treat human beings as consumable.

(Or—after all, as human beings, this is what we have been doing to our planet and to other species of life on Earth?)

Psychopathy exists: an absence of empathy, a nervous system unmoved by suffering, a capacity to harm without remorse.

But there is something even more unsettling than psychopathy alone—what is called “demonic.” It is when cruelty becomes entertainment. When innocence becomes prey. When power is measured by how deeply one can violate another being and remain untouched, feeding off it. It shook me to my core.

So let’s talk about the concept of evil. What is evil? Does it exist?

Is it an independent force—or, as the Himalayan teacher Swami Rama suggested, the absence of light?

He wrote:“I was fortunate to meet a few who walked on the path of light, and who denied the existence of darkness by saying that the sun itself never knows what darkness looks like.”

From this perspective, evil is not a separate entity but a form of disconnection.

If light represents connection—to truth, love, and the deeper self—then darkness represents ignorance, fear, and identification with ego and mind. Life appears dual in nature: hot and cold, expansion and contraction, love and fear.

If existence is infinite, then so are its expressions. Life on Earth is not an easy classroom, it demands resilience, it asks us to navigate chaos while attempting to build something resembling heaven within and around us. For many people, reality is already harsh.

But confronting the possibility that large-scale harm may not be accidental—that some of it may be orchestrated by individuals deeply disconnected from empathy—hits differently. That realization destabilizes you.

When I immersed myself in these revelations, I lost my center. My body reacted with fear. My mind spiraled. The sense of collective goodness I had held since childhood fractured.

For a while, darkness felt overwhelming. And then something else happened. Just as many of us adapted during global crises—last but not least, COVID—my nervous system adjusted. The shock settled. I recognized something important: Evil may exist, corruption may exist—but fear does not serve me.

The only domain where I have real power is within myself. I cannot control leaders acting inhumanely. I cannot single-handedly dismantle broken systems. But I can decide how I respond within. I can refine my values. I can strengthen my inner alignment. I can serve as an example to others.

I remembered that light and darkness have always coexisted—throughout history, throughout my own life, and at this moment in every cell of my being. The task is not to deny darkness, nor to drown in it. The task is to remain centered despite it.

Besides, we cannot deal with darkness by keeping it in the shadows. It needs to come out; we need to look at it and acknowledge it as something that exists and is a part of us. Only in this way can we integrate it, move beyond it, and transform it.

So I returned to what I know works: focusing on self-mastery; stopping the feeding of fear of the shadow; allowing the body to recover; loving myself; clarifying my values; becoming more fiercely who I am—not in spite of turbulent times, but because of them.

History shows that systems collapse. Paradigms shift. What feels like disruption can also be a precursor to renewal. And while I do not romanticize suffering, I hold this conviction: when structures built on distortion fall, something more coherent has the chance to emerge.

My responsibility is not to obsess over the darkness. It’s to be realistic about it and to strengthen the light I carry and the ways in which I choose to live my life.