#binary thinking – Breaking the Chains that Bind

It’s hard living in a binary world.
On/Off
Black/White
I/O
Right/Wrong

For, in God’s Cosmos there are even more colors than Microsoft’s Millions and Millions.
There is the space between the river above and the river below as water cascades over the stones that divide the two. In that space the water is neither above nor below. It is neither In one or out of the other.
It is Between Space.

Right?
Wrong?
According to whom?
You?
Me?
Someone else?

Yes, some things must fall in one or the other.
Murder?
Wrong!
Rape?
Also, Wrong!
Feed the Poor?
Always Right!
Give a needed hug?
Right, again.

We don’t usually need to make those kinds of choices in our everyday lives, though.
Do we?

No, most of the time we need to decide between strawberry and grape jelly with the peanut butter on the sandwich.
Neither right nor wrong.

Yet, we fight and argue over the color of the bathroom or which gas station to go to.
“No! I want Yellow paint! I’ll pick it up on my way to Get-Go!”
“Forget that! You’ll get Blue paint on your way back from Speedway!”

From politics to religion to whether Spam is actually food, we disparage one another.
“It’s my way or the highway!” we shout.

But, what if it’s not?

Rather than Either This or That,
What if life is actually filled with

Both/And?

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The Western mind had been trained to see things in Binary terms.
Right/Wrong
Good/Evil
White/Black
On/Off

But, what if the Universe doesn’t work that way?
What if there can be
Right/Right?

In most stories people who lead so-called “double lives” are generally cast as immoral. Or, at the very least, amoral. They can’t possibly be virtuous. In fact, theirs is a life defined by vice. It is vulgar and without any redeeming value.

The story that I plan to work on this year during NaNoWriMo is one in which I hope to look at the possibility that Right isn’t always quite Right.
Perhaps there are degrees of “Rightness.”
And, what happens when someone finds themselves with lives that exist in two different realities must straddle that gulf where what is Good and Acceptable in one reality may be entirely different that that in the other.

Can that person be called Virtuous?

Or, would that person be a Victim? Victimizer?

I don’t know for sure where the story will lead.
That’s one of the cool things about creating worlds and stories to populate them.
They can take on a life of their own.
Perhaps, to the mountain peaks.
Perhaps, into Alice’s rabbit hole.
The journey should be interesting.

For who truly knows where Light ends and Light begins?

Tag: #binary thinking

Both/And

Light To Light?