We Go High
A great deal of the reason that the binary is so polarizing and contentious is because we assume too much responsibility of/for it.
Binary's origin meaning is “two.” Polarizing comes from polar, which comes from pole. The origin meaning of pole is “to revolve, move around.”
Can we revolve around just two things in an infinite Multiverse? Sustainability says no. Binary Polarity as existential philosophy causes an echo chamber of “this OR that" phantasms.
Where, being caught between that cacophony of fixated noise, one forgets even the binary exists along a spectrum of binaries that reflect all the dimensions of “twoness.” The gag is, it’s always been “this AND that.”
Binary Polarity is not sound philosophy to break ground or construct grand buildings on. Which is why society is the way it is—an echo chamber of “this OR that” phantasms where beings are caught between that cacophony of fixated noise. At least, we are caught up in it initially. We are born into it and the social conditioning that has been instilled into relationship, family, community, society and government.
Even as we decondition and unpack our systemic biases and unconscious beliefs over the course of a lifetime, we are doing so by navigating through global societies that mostly uphold Binary Polarity as a truth of life.
Thus, under the guise of Binary Polarity being the most natural structure of Existence, it is easily passed off that there must be “haves” or “have nots” and “good people” or “bad people” and “rich” or “poor” etc. Why? Because there is one and there is two? Because there is one and then another? Certainly if Existence has accounted for it, we must also be able to account for it being extensions of Existence as well?
It is very easy to submit to some dimension of the Binary Polarity philosophy; for of course even it is a spectrum, whether you are deconditioning and unpacking your systemic biases or not. There are areas of experience, life and space that we individually or collectively just may not prefer. This can include concepts, beliefs, people, places, eras in time, types of environment, etc.
This is our right. This is anybody’s/anythings right given unto us by Existence itself. Sanctioned by the fact that we are allowed our personal preferences and opinions. Even if people want to be in our heads and know everything we think, they cannot. Much of the time many of us may not even be aware of the diverse array of thoughts that come across our own minds.
So yes we are allowed our preferences to want things, or not want things, that aren’t given or inherent in our given environment. But so is everybody and everything else. And all that is Other-than-You can and may feel completely different about the whole Existence process. And this, too, is okay. Because it’s already happening. Which means it is long (and infinitely) cosigned by Existence as being where you encounter it or as it is to itself when you encounter it.
What Existence allows us to do to the best of our abilities given the circumstances and what we are capable of, is choose accordingly for ourselves and those who have seen fit to consensually entrust themselves to our care. Which includes the right for people to choose poorly for themselves or in the opposite direction of where you/we are, if, when and as they feel so governed.
Existence grants many of us this ability through the agency of Free Will. The etymology of which means, “to love” “to choose.”
Not to love every choice you’ve ever made. Not to love every choice in front of you. Not to love all the choices you ever had to or will ever have to make. But, simply, to love to choose. To love that you can choose for yourself what it is for you, whether or not you can act out on that choice immediately, visibly or actually. But to know for yourself and to know of yourself and to know yourself. That is the deep gift of agency.
Even if we want good things for people who don’t want it for themselves, there should be a degree of agency allowed for and constantly regarded. Such as them having access to those things if they change their minds, but not being punished for not wanting access to those things if they do not.
Forcing people to do a positive thing is still using coercion to justify the ends. This is a slippery slope that every humxn being has slipped down as a result of incarnating as humxn in Existence. Nevertheless, we can certainly inform people of how we are and what consequences we know there to be for when we are transgressed upon or betrayed accidentally or intentionally. This is what society does with Laws of Governance and a Legislative and Judicial system.
Still, once we’ve informed others of the parameters as we know them to be ourself, we are allowing for and consenting to the discovery of how well what we tell people is actually taken in. This is often an unpleasant road of discovery for people because of negative affirmations and limitations, but it’s a natural byproduct of Existence co-signing and co-managing literally infinitely different preferences, opinions, personalities and belief systems. Existence is a risk taker! Even if and when we are not with the shits, it is what it is.
I like to think of people as tuning forks of varying frequencies and tonalities within those frequencies. Higher frequencies include all the frequencies below them and can therefore adjust more easily in mixed-frequency culture. Lower frequencies also include all the frequencies below them, but are not necessarily that aware or that readily able to become aware of the frequencies above them. It takes, of course, tuning.
Tuning is a matter of inspiration and feelings. When people meet each other they can inspire each other to do and become capable of all kinds of things. Sometimes we are tuning each other neutrally, sometimes negatively, sometimes positively. Ideally we’re all leaving each other as tuned as we found each other if not more tuned and capable of raising in octaves.
For this reason, I find the Binary Polarity to be extremely challenging as an echo chamber. It makes tuning competitive rather than harmonious. It makes tuning discordant rather than resolvent. And while there is absolutely space, experience and life for discordant and competitive things. Some things are also, ultimately and physically, divisive in nature. Intended to separate things, distinguish things and classify them as “different.” Sometimes this is behavioral mechanisms or beliefs in a person’s toolkit, sometimes it’s a person!
It is true each of us is in a different class: a class of our own! But that is not our only demarcation or even our most generous or descriptive one. The bottom line is, if we want something to be sustainable in the long term so that we can rely upon its sustainability, then we need to be at least neutral and at best positive in our existential philosophy, behavioral responses and socialized actions.
Or we allow the lower frequencies to tune us or retune us to include less of the spectrum of scale, less octaves and less dimensions than we are actually capable of recognizing, being aware of and engaging with. This is why when they go low, you go high. Or, if you prefer it in this more offensive misquote long attributed to Mark Twain, “never argue with an idiot or they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
Through a bit of quick verification research I actually learned that this quote was originally attributed to Yul Brynner of all people. Who, apparently, was either falsely or honestly quoting his own friend Jean Cocteau.
This is funny because the original quote is apparently, “Never associate with idiots on their own level, because, being an intelligent man, you’ll try to deal with them on their level—and on their level they’ll beat you every time.”
Certainly it’s not as quick and tight, but it provides an agency that the misquote does not. That is, the fact that you CHOOSE to deal with them on their level. Rather, you could just keep doing you. Or trust Existence. Or remove yourself. Or call attention to them so others deal with them. Or any other number of infinite potential outcomes you could decide for yourself with your Free Will.
I am adjacent to many communities that identify as anarchists, communists, anti-, etc. And I am not going to throw any shade toward those beliefs because they are valid as choices and I respect people’s agency to decide their foundational philosophies for themselves.
That being said, I find it extraordinary that there are people in those communities who rock with an “us or them” type tonality when that is obviously a binary definition. It makes me think of Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar, actually. When Mark Antony is speaking on the steps and giving his appeasement speech. He says something to the effect of, “the good that men do is oft interred with their bones. The evil men do oft lives after them.”
I’m reminded of this quote because humxnity, in general, is lazy enough to only want to have to remember people as “good” or “bad.” A “hero” or a “villain.” Completely “perfect” or offensively “imperfect.” We do not make a practice of holding for, allowing for and appreciating people for having all these qualities at any given time.
Rather, we want to remember them based only on their failures or only on their successes. This, too, is part of the Binary Polarity philosophy. Which, as a cosmology, is inherently divisive. Making 2 central to your existential outlook without paying the same heed to 1, 3 and beyond really undermines 2’s ultimate relevance in the line-up of infinite meaning (and numbers).
I wonder if the people who claim death and death only to the Empire or destruction and destruction only to the Empire really appreciate what that means on the ground. We complain about Patriarchy and the effects of PTSD yet we claim we want blood? That means blood in the water you would drink. Guts in the land you would plough. Cremation fires in the air you would breathe. Trouble in the peace you claim you seek.
Falling isn’t the only way down. Scaling down mountains or octaves is certainly more time consuming and scary as it allows for more time to consider “failure,” but if done with attention it becomes a more assured way to come down from something in a sustainable manner. Without killing or endangering yourself or others.
We can deconstruct. We do not have to demolish. We can do things diligently. We do not have to be a tirade of forces just to move things forward. We can be subtle individual progressions all just doing their personal due diligence. Not with collective force, but with mutual consent.
Binary Polarity has people impatient. Because when you are under the false philosophy that it’s only what you need OR what they need or claim to need, there’s nothing much to consider but your livelihood and existences OR theirs. This doesn’t require much deliberation if you want to live. So it also doesn’t require much patience when it comes to the “means justifying the ends.”
Yet, the binary is also a spectrum. Polarity also has dimension. In fact, two opposing things must meet in the middle where they mutually disagree about their central subject. So there is always ambiguity and there is always paradox on some level.
The question I’m asking is, when will humxns allow that to be obvious, inevitable and a part of the (r)evolution?
Photo taken by Sara Lazio
