I remember seeing things so clearly as a child. People were either good or evil, healthy or unhealthy, republican or democrat, Christian or heathen, and I was always categorizing them whether I was conscious of it or not.
Unfortunately in my naïveté my criteria for judging others wasn’t always correct. I thought a good person dressed well, smiled a lot, smelled good, and spoke kindly. If a person didn’t fit those categories, they must be bad.
Children think in these “either or” terms because their brains have not yet developed enough to discern and differentiate. Children trust their senses, what they see, hear, smell, and feel. Many philosophers believe the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit is an analogy of the human condition. We are born innocent until we reach the age of discernment, the knowledge of good and evil. Once this understanding takes place we begin making choices that can be held accountable.
When this transition occurs, we often use dualistic thinking to make ourselves feel better…”you’re bad and I’m good” etc. This gives us a way of evaluating ourselves at a higher level. We can always find someone to rank lower than ourselves, and then we get the rush of relief that we are ok…”I may be this but at least I’m not as bad as that!”
When we begin to come to the understanding that our consciousness, our morality, our very souls are circular and not linear or hierarchical….ever connected and moving in a dance of dark and light, we can finally accept the truth of who we are and rest in that knowledge. We are at one time both good and evil, unselfish and selfish, loving and hateful and everything in between….we can finally relax in ourselves. The hierarchical/linear approach makes us liars to ourselves and others. If we deny the darkness it eventually rots within and rats us out…even Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” (Luke 18:19)
As I continue to accept myself as I am, the good the bad and the ugly, the saint and the sinner intertwined, I actually feel better about myself now that I am not trying to paint others as evil or wrong. We are all made in God’s image. We are all made of dust and will return to it. We are all people who have opinions, passions, hurts, and we make choices some good some not, we love, we rage, we live we die. The sooner we accept this the better listeners we will become, and if we truly begin to listen to each other we might realize our commonalities and find resolutions instead of continuing this damaging polarization of our “either/or” mentality.
Seasons of the Soul 