Say, a group of people are protesting an issue X. Another group is supporting X. Both groups are at a town square, holding signs and the air is tense with slogans. Emotions are high, some are angry and the cops are at the scene to prevent any breakage of civic laws.
For an observer who doesn't know much about the issue X, all
it will appear is that both groups strongly care about some X. It will dawn on
the observer that the groups care for or against X, depending on how it affects
their lives, their values and vision. And that some in the groups are angry.
For another observer who knows much about and cares about X but
is steadily neutral, it will be the same- two groups strongly care about X. They
care either for or against X. X affects them in opposing ways and that some in the groups are angry.
For X, Against X
Angry, Not Angry
Doesn't know much about X, Knows
much about X.
Doesn't know, Knows much. For, Against.
X. Say, if we separate X from what we know and don’t know,
from whether we are for or against it and from how X affects us. Say we look at X, the issue, for itself. Does
it still hold ground? Does it become a non-issue? Maybe. Maybe not. But certainly our feelings will settle down a
notch.
Mirror images
What is the mirror image of something that is bothering you?
Or making you happy? Have you looked?
If you look, you might see that what is Is, is held in place
by all that what it Is Not (but not all
the time)
There is a kind of beautiful and terrible wholesomeness to
this; it is hard to keep together.
*****
(I was reading my blogpost- Of All That Matters in the
weekend and reconnected with the phrase, “Contraria Sunt Complementa” – Opposites
are Complementary. I wanted to connect
this with a previous post, Mirror Images, which was about Opposites)
Much to my wonder, I found out after I started noticing
these, these opposites, that the nature of these opposites, or the mirror
images as I think of them, are a core part of the philosophies of some eastern
religions. The philosophy gets mostly lost in the religious practices (for example, there is the Nirdvandva in Samkhya Yoga of Gita, and in Taoism, sayings like When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises.)
Trying to
overcome these opposites through pure faith, forgiveness and love is shown as a
way in many religious practices (not just eastern ones). People have done it before
and continue to do so. For pure love obviates everything else. But it is hard
to arrive at.
Another way is through painstaking analysis and
understanding. When in especially trying situations or in an especially delightful
one, sometimes I bring up its mirror image and hold it up in my mind. I separate
out the effects from the situation. Considering the opposite,
in all its splendor or distress, somehow makes the situation clearer and helps settle my feelings a bit. I still
have to face the situation in the best way I can, from where I’m at, with all
my abilities and fears and bear the outcomes of my actions. But my actions try
to come from a clearer, central perspective and not be purely motivated by
one or the other of the two opposing cause-effect fields.
Try being the key word!
*****
The journey to here has been an oblique one, one thread perhaps
was from when I was learning to teach-
Same- Different, using colored paper clips, when I started homeschooling
about 4 years ago.
Which one is Different?
Which ones are Same?
I asked, with the clips placed on contrasting white sheet(s)
of paper as background, because I was just realizing how much my son sees objects in space differently than me.
Within a couple of days I began to realize that the issue
wasn't about knowing/not knowing what was Same and Different, it was something
else. It was about having value for a system that marks something as Same and
Different.
So what? So what if something is Same or Different? Why does
it matter? Why does it matter how we communicate about it?
For M, my son, who is neurologically different, the values
of the system (which in turn drive the system) were different. Also his need to communicate that something
was same or different was not the same as mine. And what the language meant to each of us was slightly different.
I began to glimpse at the levels of assumptions we neuro-normals sturdily walk
on, with every step we take. I began to step more cautiously.
It was our value systems, mine and M’s, which needed more
alignment, it seemed. This meant if we’re speaking, say of X, figuring out if X
holds a similar value system for both of us, within our communication and, in
the language (words, tone and expression together within the environment) we
use. If not, to know what’s different. And to let it be. Also to let the inconsistencies I don’t have answers
to, be.
******