When we move from the darkness into the light, it becomes possible for us to let many things appear that could not appear in the dark. The presence of light lets us see things like trees and tables, which we can touch but not see when there is no light, and it lets us see things like colors and pictures, which cannot be present at all while we remain in darkness. We are all familiar with light as that which lets such things appear to us. However, there is something besides light, something we can call, metaphorically, another kind of illumination, that is also at work when things appear to us; this is the achievement of letting things appear. It comes about in us, and if it did not take place, going from darkness into light would not do us much good. Only because we are engaged in the achievement of letting things appear do we normally prefer light to darkness, and there are also times when we achieve manifestation better in darkness than in the light.
[Robert Sokolowsi, Pictures, Quotations, and Distinctions: Fourteen Essays in Phenomenology, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN: 1992) p. 3.]
