What’s Obvious Goes Unnoticed
Every problem needs a solution. It is only by the existance of a possible solution that we can label something as a “problem”. Otherwise we would just understand it as “is”.
For example, one of the biggest adversaries to human flourishing is out constant need to eat, our ever returning hunger and need for nourishment. Wars have been fought over land which from which to produce food, harvests destroyed as a form of military tactic. Every day billions of people go to jobs they don’t much enjoy so that they might earn money, so they might eat.
If only we could “cure” hunger, so much unnessercary suffering could be avoided. However, we can’t cure hunger. And so, it is not a “Problem”.
Because a problem needs a solution.
In the same way that can inside can not exist without an outside, a north without a south. No “me” without “you”.
In the same way, our identification of “emotion” is dependant on “non-emotion”. We can not identify “Sadness” without a state of “Non-sadness”, “Anger” without “Non-Anger”
There is a strange dependance on all things with their opposites. In fact, as it turns out, it is the mental seperation between degrees of what is essentially the same thing that leads to our idea of opposites.
You see, in a world without human observation, there is no “hot” or “cold”, just temperature. Because of our need to categorize the world so that we may better adapt our survival to it, we have split otherwise homogenous phenomena into categorized opposites
Getting Confused Along The Way – The Mental Trap That’s Always Waiting
The more we ruminate on the above, the more we seem to think “So what?” A little technicality isn’t dangerous. What is, however, is when we begin to mistake ideas for reality.
Our binary separation of the world is useful for a variety of things, (imagine trying to bake a cake without a conception of temperature differences). The danger occurs when we begin to believe that one side of the opposite is either somehow separate from the whole, or that one side is exclusively and objectively superior to the other.
I could take this example and use it to describe an almost limitless amount of phenomena that we are mistaken about every single day, (for example, how one may be understood as either gay or your straight. But some others as bisexual. Meaning one who is neither gay, nor straight, and yet somehow also both at the same time). But this time I am going to focus on how it creates seperation between “us” and “them”.
You see, it’s easy to look at someone and feel, “wow, that person so does NOT have it together, I’m so glad I’m not like them”, and feel a sense of superiority over them. In these moments what we don’t quite grasp, is that our good-feeling and sense of superiority is completely dependant on that other persons inferred inferior position. Our sense of self-worth (in this example), is dependant on our perceived relation to this other person. In that sense, we could not have the same self-affirming view of who we are without them. To that end, we then begin to notice that previously where we felt superiority in relation to the other, upon scrutiny, we begin to understand that this other is actually fuel for our existance, and thus whilst we may feel that perhaps their dissapearance would be a gain for the world, it may also be a loss for us.
This is precisely how many opinion groups online stay alive. Both Sides are completely dependant on the other
This is precisely how many opinion groups online stay alive. Both sides (sometimes there are more than two), are completely dependant on the other, and actually propogate the flourishment of each other. For example, every time someone on “Side A” mentions “Side B”, they are, by proxy, placing mental emphasis on the idea of “Side B”, causing it to enter the consciousness of more and more people, thus keeping it alive.
This is not a new idea, and you may be familiar with it from Richard Dawkins’ famous book The Selfish Gene. This is memetics at play. This is what we mean when we say “memes”. In some sense, what is means is that we are, at least on an unconscious level, slave to the ideas we foster. However, what I would like to focus on, is how a fundamental change in how we understand opposition can alleviate the feelings of resentment, anger and immediacy that we often feel when confronted with opposing ideas and viewpoints.
Bees Need Flowers, And I Need You
The end result is always rather funny, when one realises, how simple things really are.
Imagine for a second, someone does something to you. Says something, points a finger, makes an unkind gesture. Something that really grinds your gears, makes you furious.
It’s easy to pour blame on both sides. It’s either “You are too quick to anger”, or “That someone is a right dick”. However, what if you took a third point of view.
By making you angry, that person has done something extraordinary. They have created a sense of seperation in your mind, one between “They and I”. Because of them, because of the hate you feel for them, they now stand, in your mind, an entity extremely seperate from you. In fact, they have reaffirmed your sense of self in so many ways. You now feel that your opinions and space are superior to theres, that they “Shan’t be going around acting that way if they were to be any kind of decent”. You hate them.
So imagine now, if you were to realise, the very angry “You” who exists in that moment, the “You” who is somehow seperate from the happy “You” of five seconds ago, and most definitaly seperate from the calm “You” some hours later, is completely dependant on the existance of “Them”. In fact, it could be said, that without “Them”, “You”, could not exist, in the same way up can not exist without down.
In some sense, looking from afar, one could make the observation that “You” and “Them”, are not actually seperate at all!
This Is It Folks, The Secret You’ve All Been Waiting For
Anger isn’t a problem. A single outburst and some things change. Maybe someone gets hurt. It can suck, but it isn’t a huge problem.
What is a problem is the kind of emotion that grates at you, day after day. Like a prolonged loathing, an everlasting tension, ever-present paranoia. That kind of pain erodes you, like rain to a mountain, beating down at you every single day.
Thats the kind of spirit-destroying erosion that creates, (and maintains) social anxiety. An obstacle to feeling free, feeling confident in yourself and your abilities. Maybe it’s time you switched your viewpoint.
You see, when you believe, (and correctly so), that there is no “I” but the “I” that exists now, and you also believe that such an “I” is dependant on everything around it. You begin to settle into the understanding that you are a part of an extremely complex ecosystem that only exists now, and will end without a moment to give notice. You begin to realise that the only “I” is also equivilant to “You”, that the things that seperate the “I” from everything else is also what defines it.
You begin to realise that “I” wasn’t really such a big of a deal to begin with, if only because there is too much going on to really understand what “I” means, anyway
When you finally realise that life begets death just as death begets life. When the value in living is only brought about by the reality of dying. When you realise it will all carry on after death just like it did before. When you realise that although “I” die, “You” (who is also “I”) do not.
Then it becomes very hard to be shocked by anything, to feel fear without reason. to get mad and stay mad for a prolonged or unnecerssary amount of time. You will cease to suffer, although pain will still come and go. Because “it” is all here are you are also it, just like that someone who made you angry is also all of it, and just like you will continue to be, even after death.
