It’s Real : A Note from the Publisher, Zida Borcich
Maybe it’s the rain, the bringing in of the wood and keeping a fire going all day to stay cozy, along with its companion powerful desire to sit right next to it at a stretch, that’s got me into this reflective mood. Maybe it’s too much time sticking around the house perfecting my sourdough bread, thinking, thinking, avoiding Covid. I’m talking about duality. Yes, reflecting on duality is my hobby du jour, and it’s quite absurd holding these opposites in my finite brain like a human form of alternating current. It actually hurts. I find that if I can just stay there (big IF), holding them without judgment like the quantum wave/particle argument without arguing, understanding that sometimes it’s a wave and sometimes it’s a particle and sometimes it’s both, depending on where you’re standing, rather than oscillating pendulum-ishly in never-ending indecision, it’s better. But it’s really hard. The oscillation will really drive a person crazy. Good/evil, light/dark, left/right, love/hate, security/risk, boy/girl, peace/war. Happy/sad. These opposites are what the world is made of—and lately, rather one or the other, absolutes, with no hope of moving off the dime, never considering compromise. But I digress, as usual: that’s maybe about politics. In my silent moments by the fire, I lose myself to the wonder of holding utter happiness and utter sorrow in the same heart; of realizing realistically that we are all really good and really flawed; that life and death are equally part of this deal, to be accepted and expected; that to live is to sit with these enigmatic counterparts unresolved. Both are true. It’s a choice.
As to the current narrative on the newsfeeds…sheesh. Given that polarities have always existed, we don’t have to assume middle ground was commonly found in the past. It’s in the history books. How did people get over themselves enough to get anything done? Many groups have lived by consensus, but the losers’ anguish at losing and the winners’ necessity to not gloat were art forms they had to work hard at. How to extinguish the win/lose paradigm? Historically, people of strong and contradictory opinions have managed to talk to each other with respect in order to come to some sort of mutual okay-ness, to come to decisions that benefited the common good, as opposed to resorting to slanderous labeling or cheating or actual violence to get their own way.
Me no know. I’m as guilty as you are of this all-or-nothing business the world has fallen to. But my hobby du jour is making me stand in the middle of the conundrum, contemplating, at least, the effectiveness of taking an absolute stand to the possible detriment of the hoped-for outcome, as opposed to looking for ways to make a deal, when the deal feels like capitulation. Duality, people. Really.
