About 6 months ago I read “The Book” by Alan Watts. Not a whole lot has stuck with me half a year later, but there was one enlightening thought that I came to while I was reading it.
Watts writes about a game of black and white. The fight between two things that are in someway dependent on each other. We have concepts that we know because they contrast something else. Then we fight to get rid of the side of the spectrum that we don’t like.
Black and White are in a way dependent on each other becaure they exist in contrast. You can tell something is black in comparison to other colors on the spectrum. Like you can tell that something is white in comparison to other colors down on the spectrum of light.
It is like the difference between light and dark.How do you know what dark is? Because you can compare it to light.
How do you know what high is? Because you can compare it to low.
We only know things because we can compare them to other things. But often we will get very into the idea of completely removing one end of the spectrum.
But you can never get rid of low because the next lowest point will become the lowest point.
I realized that I was playing this game within myself.
I was deeply motivated to improve myself as a person. I was trying to be perfect. I wanted to wake up early, to be productive during the day, to challenge myself to meet new people, to always be improving.
It wasn’t just wanting to be improving though. I had split myself in a way. There was good Ryan and their was bad Ryan. Not in a weird split personality way, but because I would look back into the past and see myself doing things that I didn’t like. I would see myself eating unhealthy, procrastinating, not living up to my standards.
Instead of just accepting that there would be situations when I was tired or would not be as aware of my ideals as I would like, I was playing a game, where I wanted good Ryan to win, and completely get rid of bad Ryan. But those two things only existed in contrast to each other. Good Ryan couldn’t win, because if good Ryan won there would no longer be a good Ryan, there would just be Ryan.
Maybe I was sabatoging myself, not living up to my standards so that in the future I could and then could feel good about myself in comparison to myself.
I wasn’t accepting that life comes with ups and downs. That we should enjoy highs, but realize they can’t last because we only think of them as high in comparison to lows.
At the same time we can appreciate lows, knowing that they help us define our highs when we move out of the lows.
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