paradise lost

Devils used to be God's angels that fell from the top.

Milton's Satan was the brightest one up there, the closest to the light, and that's what made the fall possible. You can only fall that far if you started that high.

The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

He says it like he's won something, but it reads more like a confession. Hell was never a place for him. It's what pride does when it can't stand being anything less than the top: it'd rather rule the wreckage than start again lower down.

Most falls start with nothing evil. You get good at something, people tell you you're good at it, and slowly you need it to stay true. The height becomes who you are, and anything that threatens it starts to feel like the enemy.

So maybe the answer is to hold the top loosely enough that losing it doesn't turn you into something else.