Why I believe in the Devil

When I was a 9-year-old kid, my front tooth had started moving- I would have to bid farewell to him soon. After some intense exchange of words, it was decided that my mom was to wrap a thread around my tooth and force it out. The experience was painful, tears rolled down my eyes, mucus soon followed- rendering my face wet. But there was a glimmer of hope waiting for me. While sleeping, I would put my tooth under the pillow to summon the tooth fairy. The next morning, I was to be rewarded with money. However, things did not play out like that. I was greeted by my musty tooth instead of money the next morning. 

This betrayal could not diminish my faith in the tooth fairy. I kept putting my teeth under the pillow and got the same results. My rational adult brain is tempted to look at this memory with a sense of superiority. How foolish of me to believe in such fairy tales. Of course, beliefs should be informed by facts and logic and not by fabricated stories. 

But how far can we force rationality into things? If you think rationally, there is no objective meaning to life. Sooner or later, everything that we know will be reduced to nothingness. We can’t walk around with the knowledge of the indifference of the universe, we need some fairy tales to nullify the existential dread. It’s hard to be a functioning member of society when you are nihilistic. 

Even adults believe in some kinds of fairy tales- how they will be rewarded by God in the afterlife, how the adoption of an economic system or a political party will solve all their problems, how things will suddenly work in their favor or the opposite, how what they’re doing is going to revolutionize the world, and so on. I wanted to have a strong belief in some kind of fairy tale as well. So, I decided to believe in the devil. 

To understand why, I need to explain the conflict that I believe eludes everyone. Like most people, I want to live life to the fullest extent. If I’m able to do that, I can be a functioning member of society and lead a fulfilling life with a sense of purpose, making the present moment more bearable on average. But the thing is, to live life to the fullest, I cannot do what I “like”. If I do that, I will scroll through Instagram as soon as I wake up and engage in the numerous instant gratifications that modern life has to offer. Me doing what I feel like does not necessarily translate to me liking doing those things. In fact, the things that make me feel good are the things that I don’t want to do, but I know I have to do. Depending on who you are, these things might be different. For a student, it includes putting the phone down and finally getting that assignment done, going and talking to people, going out and doing something challenging, and so on. But, in the vast majority of instances, I don’t “feel” like studying, like not wasting time. I feel like doing the opposite, engaging in activities that are of no substance to the soul. To navigate through this contradiction, I need the devil. 

I fully believe that a devil exists inside of me, tempting me to stray away from the things that I have to do and the person that I want to become. The devil tries to convince me to take that puff from a cigarette, to eat unhealthily, to lie on my bed and scroll through my phone, to not make use of an opportunity out of a fear of rejection, and so on. I believe that deep in our intuition we know exactly what to do to live the best life. To unlock this, I simply have to ask myself, “What is the right thing to do?”. The urge to do anything else is just the devil tempting me.