I come from a culture of black-and-white thinking. There are no shades of gray; there is no middle ground. And only the opposites are real. But for the last two-thirds of my life I have deeply questioned this line of thinking. And I have come to see it as false truth… more dangerous than ever in today’s zero-and-one digital world.
According to many spiritual traditions, we live in a world of opposites.
- Good and Evil
- Light and Darkness
- Strength and Weakness
- Wealth and Poverty
- Health and Sickness
- Life and Death
- Haves and Have-nots
According to mainstream media, we are more polarized than we’ve ever been.
- The Right versus The Left
- The East versus The West
- The Christians versus The Non-Christians
- The Faithful versus The Infidel
- The Chosen versus Everyone else
When all you can see is the differences, by your own thinking you create a world of exclusion, a world of Us and Them, a world without empathy. And taken to the end of the continuum, your thinking will create a world of fundamentalist extremism.
But when you take a closer look…
What we call opposites are really different quantities of the same quality.
- Evil is the absence of Good.
- Darkness is the absence of Light.
- Weakness is the absence of Strength.
- Poverty is the absence of Wealth.
- Sickness is the absence of Health.
- Death is the absence of Life.
- Not having is the absence of Having.
Even at their extremes polar opposites are connected.
The reality of opposites is that they are not separate. Rather opposites are extremes on a single continuum.
In traditional electrotechnology, a battery connects two opposite poles (negative and positive). Dictated by the laws of Nature, this polarity creates a current of energy that flows in the form of waves from the negative to the positive pole. And where there are waves, there is uninterrupted connection.
These opposite poles, just like the qualities above, are connected. The natural flow of energy is from negative to positive. And this flow of energy is simply the natural state of things:
- from Absence to Presence
- from Nothingness to Existence
- from Idea to Product
So imagine how much resistance is required to block that flow. Reaching far beyond the physical world, this resistance occurs on a personal, cultural and global level today. But it is not natural, for you or for the world.
“Nature abhors a vacuum,” Aristotle famously surmised.
The flow is the Creative Process.
This flow of energy is Life itself. The waves of this energy make up the creative process. And the Wheel of Creativity shows you every tick mark on that continuum between negative and positive, between…
Where you are today Where you want to be
0% _____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____ 100%
When you look at Planet Earth as a ship at sea in space, it is clear that we will sink or flow through time together.
In conclusion, the only sustainable system for the world today is one of inclusion, connection, and Together. We can – and we must – shift our personal and collective mindset from exclusion to inclusion, from one of separation to connection, from destruction to creation. Any other way of living is based on false truth.
So what are you committed to creating with your one precious life?
Dream a little bigger. Do the Wheel of Creativity QuickStart today!
Debra Johnson says
This is a simple yet extraordinary insight Katherine!
“…the flow of energy (being) the natural state (and varying ranges along the spectrum)… imagine how much resistance (effort… counter-productive energy) is required to block that flow…”!!Oh My!!! INDEED!
Debs OnTarget
Katherine Robertson-Pilling says
Just found your post, Debs! Let it FLOW!