The Fever Of Phineas -- O hai, a Six of Racer 5 is Awesome! Thanks!

My Lifelong Battle with Dualism May 27, 2005

Posted by Phineas in : Irrelevant , trackback

My Lifelong Battle with Dualism.

I confess that making binary sorts of distinctions has been a habit and a crutch my whole life. It is an attempt at simplification. I have been accused of over-simplification because of this rather insistent predilection. I don’t know for sure when simplification becomes over-simplification. I confess that too.

But when a decision is required, this drawing of distinctions has always gotten me unblocked. Perhaps the error is to be so overly grateful for the unblockage as to take this new thought, the one half of the equation that got me going, as truth.

Formulations which seem so attractive like, “You can either do X, or else let Y happen…” Either/Or kind of thing, work perfectly well for me. Note to self: read Either/Or.

Invariably I get called on it, however. A clever conversation partner (all too few and far between!) will introduce the third way, the unconsidered aspect. This always frustrates and irritates me. Once I’ve got a nice picture in my mind, who needs this twisted logical challenge? After all, it’s either this or that, dammit. I’ve barely got the idea stablized in my head, and now I have to consider this seemingly-irrelevant exception or anomaly.

For all I know, other people strive for dualism. It’s their elusive virtue. For me it’s my vice.

Beyond dualistic thinking, I know not what. Holism, I guess. Points along a continuum. I can definitely deal with points along a continuum. I like that. A line is like a boundary between either and or. I usually pay attention to one side or the other, but it’s true, the continuum is also worth much contemplation. So I find this sort of formula working its way into my speech. Points along a continuum, gradiation, spectra. That stuff is also very cool.

I think I have no choice. I am incapable of leaps. I need to be shown or discover a very real and direct path from one place to another. I can’t just have faith, or get grace or magical insight. I also refuse to just choose sides in a partisan debate, not without finding my way from my own experience to that logic. So I need to have either a choice, or a continuum. One of those two things can get me unblocked and motivated. A choice I can make. I am a decision-maker. I never stay blocked for long unless other people are involved. A continuum gives me a path to follow. I don’t know for sure where it will lead, but I believe in the baby steps along the way, so that’s an unblocker as well.

My girfriend likes the left-brain, right-brain paradigm. She is always pointing out how I’m whichever brain it is to be the way I am. Ironically, I really hate the right-brain left-brain paradigm. I’ve taken enough acid to know that a thought or a behavior is composed of waves and sparks and fields all throughout the brain and beyond it.

Sometimes my struggle against dualism spills over into my relationship with my female Pisces partner. I spy dualistic thought in her and I go for the jugular, as if to purge it from my own system.

To all my beloved Pisces friends, I’m sorry! You guys are awesome!