
Duality â Ambivalence –
What Kind of Nightmare Is This ? We dream about things we donât want and people we arenât. Strong feminists dream of rape, vegetarians dream of meat, pacifists dream of fighting. Itâs confusing. What gives?
Language Isnât Subtle Enough to Explain You â Your personality contains all feelings, all thoughts, all ideas, rippling through you in a vast subconscious well. Your unconscious connects with the âcollective unconsciousâ of other peoples â dead, alive, even fictional. Why isnât âhate-loveâ a word? You experience that regularly. How about âfear-attractionâ? Common! What Iâm suggesting is that we need to accept the fact that a âpersonalityâ is a dynamism, not a slogan. Ambivalence is natural. Itâs healthy.
Challenge â Facing this might seem the toughest part, but it isnât for artists, who routinely âplayâ along their edge, peeking over it and imagining life on the other side. Art is the best way to express this, an enormous relief since itâs non-committal. Of course youâll have to face the surprise of your relatives when your work becomes public: âWhere did THAT come from?â But if truth be told, weâve always been surprised to be related to these people.
Danger â Society seeks to label and stigmatize. We need to explore our fear but we are afraid of becoming our fear. A simple safe word canât work when people â bankers, politicians, therapists, employers – are so fundamentally untrustworthy. That is why our identification of ourselves as Brave Explorers is so vital. The vastness of our potential cannot be controlled by language. We will never be butterflies pinned down in a museum box for the instruction/curiosity of others.
Opportunity â Appreciate your self. Donât slam the door on yourself too soon. Sometimes the worst labeler, the most determined jailor, is Us. We are deeply afraid of wandering in the forest and losing the way to get home safe. But Brave Explorers carry Home within them. As Nelson Mandela used to quote from his prison cell, if we are the captains of our souls we can be the masters of our fates. We can learn to tolerate a little ambiguity/uncertainty/ambivalence. (Henley.)
Models & Mentors – âIt seems we are capable of immense love and loyalty and as capable of deceit and atrocity. It is this shocking ambivalence that makes us unique.â â John Scott
âAmbivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.â
â Erica Jong
âThe Simpsons is about alienation and the ambivalence of living with a family who you love but drives you crazyâ
â Matt Groening
âPoetry is the home of ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty.â â Billy Collins
Mantra â âI am Everythingâ
Meditation –
#Haiku: Contemplate Duality
Causation;
Polarity;
Suspicious distrust;
Embrace
Growth process








