The myth of bipolarity

**Magical Realist** · (This post was last modified: Sep 10, 2025 05:34 PM by Magical Realist.)

Since the invention of negative numbers in arithmetic, we are forced to consider the status of other negative properties/states. Light for example is a positive state while darkness would be its negative state. Is darkness real in the same sense that light is? Is a shadow not as visible and distinctive as an image is? Or what of coldness, the negative of heat? Coldness is certainly something we can feel as much as heat. It can be measured and has observable effects on matter. It can even kill us in extremes. Or what of silence, the negative of sound? Or stillness the negative of motion? Or unconsciousness the negative of consciousness?

In reality the dividing line between such antimonies is not really so clear. Heat for example cools down, while coldness can warm up. Light can be dimmed, and darkness illuminated. This feathering and overlapping of the positive with its negative suggests that the seeming mutual exclusivity of each of these values is only illusory. That light and darkness in fact intertwine with each other and qualitatively define each other. Between the two infinities of absolute positive and absolute negative there are also endless infinitesimal shades and increments of contrast between the two. Glaring light becomes darkened into soothing a glow. Freezing cold fades away into cozy warmth. And blaring sound softens to relaxing white noise.

The System trains us to think and value in terms of blacks and whites. Right and wrong, Good and evil. Truth and illusion. Friend and foe. That way we remain deadlocked against each other in a disempowering and manipulatable state of robotic reactivity, switched on and off like mere machines. But only when we think in terms of abstract mutually exclusive absolutes like this is there contradiction and conflict. In reality, where real life happens, everything fades gradually into its own opposite, creating nuances and hues and new qualities not found in those extremes. So eschew binary thinking and the artificial choice between this vs that. Free yourself of this knee-jerk bipolarity. Find that beautiful liminal zone. And embrace the calming and subtle variations of the in-betweens.