Opposites

As Americans, we are conditioned to see the world in opposites: male/female, black/white, young/old, rich/poor, Republican/Democrat. Yet we experience the gender spectrum, encounter biracial individuals, youthful seniors and independent voters. We are suspicious of Muslims because they are not Christians even though both religions grow from the Abrahamic tradition.

While these pairings of opposites are apparent, we are taught to see them as oppositional, where there must be only one winner in the endless war for dominance of one over the other. We see this is in destructive racist attitudes. We see it in the paralysis in Congress.

In reality, we must see opposites in the light of their natural drive toward resolution. In this way the desired endpoint is not perennial war and tension, but balance and harmony.

So many people don’t even realize they are victims of this oppositional thinking. Yet in their own lives lies the perfect model. They are male and female, separate and opposite individuals, who come together in an act of love to make a new being, a resolution of both.