Black and White Thinking

62 Marbles

When I was a little girl, everything in the world fell into either of these two categories: wrong or right. Black or white. Now that I am an adult, I have put childish things aside and now I know that some things fall into wrong and some things fall into right. Some things are categorized as black and some things are categorized as white. But most things in the world aren't either! Most things in the world aren't black, aren't white, aren't wrong, aren't right, but most of everything is just different. And now I know that there's nothing wrong with different, and that we can let things be different, we don't have to try and make them black or white, we can just let them be grey. And when I was a child, I thought that God was the God who only saw black and white. Now that I am no longer a child, I can see, that God is the God who can see the black and the white and the grey, too, and He dances on the grey! Grey is okay.

C. JoyBell C.

    A few marbles ago, I went to pick up an application form for my son who is changing schools next year.  I parked outside the school on the busy street in a no parking after 3 pm zone.  When I got into my car after picking up the form, it was 2:50.  My phone rang and I answered it remaining in my spot to avoid the illegally talking and driving.  While I was talking, a person in a big van behind me started honking his/her horn.  I wondered why as it was still before 3 pm and the traffic wasn’t heavy in the six lane street.  I thought perhaps the van wanted to park behind me so I pulled up.  That didn’t stop the honking.  Then the big guy with wild eyes pulled up and yelled, “It’s a no parking zone!” (I’ve omitted the expletives).
    Instead of ignoring him, I got off the phone and opened my window to reply to him, explaining that it wasn’t three o’clock yet and I had every right to park there.  He yelled at me, asking what time it was and I answered, "Five to three."  He continued to block traffic and I decided to drive off, slightly upset. 
    What I realized when I drove away is that I had a choice to engage or not engage.  I decided to engage in order to defend my position.  When I feel anger coming at me, I tend to push back, especially when I feel it is unwarranted. More importantly, I noticed how much I enjoy being right. This is not a great thing to notice about yourself because where there is a right, there is inevitably a wrong. When I come from this place, I feel righteous but that word is defined as morally justifiable, without guilt or sin, and in accordance with virtue and morality.  But I am never completely virtuous, and the world is rarely black but myriad shades of gray.* 
    It’s not like I didn’t come by this trait honestly.  If you look around, our society is steeped in black and white thinking, from religion to politics to the politics of breakups. I can see the craziness of it when I look at political parties, so sure that their way of viewing the world is the right way, so certain that the other party is wrong.  What would it take for us to be in more allowance of how other people see the world? What would it take for me to be in allowance of other people’s interesting points of view? What would it take for me to not react to an interesting point of view especially when it is coming from a wild-eyed teacher in a van?

Do you like to be right? Does this inadvertently make others wrong? What would it take to be in more allowance of the way others see the world?
As Eckhart Tolle writes, "Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.” I like to think, "Give up defending yourself..."

*Can I even write that anymore without it evoking the thought of soft porn?