Dualities

“Daddy?”

“Yes Evelyn?”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you keep saying I own it?”

The “foundation” for everything I believe is simply this. Opposites are not two different things. They are one thing. One does not exist without the other. They are completely and utterly interdependent. Yet we can’t help but seeing them as two different things. This is trickery. The work of the Fool, the first card in tarot. It’s a prerequisite of our existence that we have to take a position on one side. In order to take that position we really have to believe it, with all our heart and soul and passion. For this reason we become it and conceive of the opposite as something that is NOT us. That is how we dream ourselves into existence.

But it IS Evelyn. It IS us.

In order to “be” something you have to be opposite to something. Otherwise you can’t “be”. There is no up without a down. There would be nothing to call a “day” if there wasn’t a “night”. There is no happiness without sadness. Without opposites, there would simply be nothing. The cost of having something includes its opposite. If you want life, then you have to accept death. If you want happiness to exist in life, then you have to accept sadness in life.

Ownership comes in the form of choice and there is no escaping it if you want to live. You can’t take something from someone without the other person losing something. For this reason, the choice to take something is also the choice for them to lose it. By making that choice, there is a cost and you own it. Even if the other person gives it willingly, your participation in it is yours. If the cost of taking it turns out to be more than expected, it is still your cost to pay. You own it. And it will certainly cost more than you expected if you don’t understand this. By taking it you became entangled in a game of opposites with another person and all of their complexities. This isn’t inherently bad, it just is. It may foster happiness and love or sadness and despair. But whatever the result, you both own the outcome. There is no one to blame.

Everyday we make choices. Choices upon choices upon choices. If you choose to participate there is a cost to that. If you choose NOT to participate there is a cost to that. If you choose to have electricity in your home like everyone else around you, then there is a cost to that. If it turns out that the choices we’ve made as a society, the ones you grew up with and accepted as a standard of life, turn out to have a hidden cost that you have to pay for one day, you along with everyone else own that cost.

It feels like a trap the way I explain it here. It sounds suffocating. But it’s not. It’s life. You need only do four things to be ok.

See it
Accept it
Learn from it
Rinse and repeat.

Of course there’s more to these than meets the eye.

Seeing it means becoming aware. Looking for the opposite in everything you do. Striving to understand. Not being ignorant of it.

Accepting it means being ok with it. Love the work you have to do as a result of your choices. Be happy that you have the opportunity to even play this game and make joy in it. Do not become bitter.

And learning from it means changing your choices if you desire different outcomes. Modifying them until you find the right path. The one that is yours.

Rather than telling you what to do I try and let you make your own choices while using the opportunity to point out the possible outcomes. Of course, at this early age I often stack the deck and present you with only two outcomes. The one I want and the one you don’t want. I am your media. But one day you’ll beat me at that game and I’ll pay the cost for having used it. But I will choose to accept it and be proud that you took control and made new outcomes where they didn’t exist before.

I will move on from this idea with one simple warning. You will experience many people around you who blame others for their problems. Gossipers and catty people who are constantly working to support the idea that they themselves do things right and the things that go wrong in their lives are a result of someone or something else. It may even seem like EVERYBODY does this. This is wrong. As a culture, we are lost. WE are who Jesus was referring to when he said “they know not what they do”. We haven’t done the work to “see it”, the connection of opposites. As a culture we are practicing ignorance by reinforcing the disconnect between our choices and the things that happen to us.

It’s hard to swim against the current. At some point you will become lost as well. You will believe that things are happening “to” you and that life is unfair. Perhaps you will experience a series of negative events that seem way beyond your control. Or you just can’t see the connection between your choices and the problems you’re struggling with. It is at this point that you are the most susceptible to trickery. People will try to console you by seeking to reinforce that it’s someone else’s fault. Or they will offer easy answers and you will listen to them in hopes of getting a shortcut out of the mess you’re in. These choices will come with a high cost and they will further reinforce the sense that your life is spinning out of control.

There are no answers “out there”. The answer is always “in you”. The answer is to own what you do AND what happens to you. They are both yours. As long as you do this, you are in control. As long as you “see it” and “accept it” you can move to step three and “learn from it” where you adapt and take control. Don’t take advice from people who are lost. It’s like trying to cling to somebody when you’re both falling from a cliff. There’s nothing to hold on to.

Step into the light Evelyn and write your life into existence. Both the good and the bad. It’s yours.