Part of life is dealing with the ambiguity that arises in our relationships, interactions and dealings. There is a frustration that comes when answers don’t. Or when the answers aren’t as clear or clean-cut as we might like them to be. We often demand to know if something is black or white when it happens to be one of a million shades of gray. That degree of inability to know something with certainty is unavoidable even though we may curse ambiguity.
And yet there are areas where we find great comfort in the same sort of inability to know. Far more often than we may notice we will navigate into the comfortable murky gray waters of the indefinite. This blindness however, is self imposed and is curable. Rather, it could be cured if it were seen as a problem. But the sickness is such that we don’t even recognize the illness.
Take the average person for example. He will likely be neither hideously ugly nor wonderfully handsome. If he is average he will know this. He will accept that he is not movie-star-handsome by using the justification that he is also not an unfortunate creature with disfigured features. The thought is something like, “I’m no Brad Pitt but at least I’m not ugly.” The average man will sigh with relief that he is on neither extreme of the spectrum. The black and the white cancel each other out—but in doing so make the gray.
Intentionally staying in the gray gives leverage to self-deception because it’s not absolute. Light gray and dark gray aren’t distinguished. Why should they be? They’re both just gray. The average person tells himself, “I’m not ugly.” What he doesn’t ask though is how close he is to being ugly. Is he the difference between white and very, very light gray, or white and very, very dark gray? That question will not be answered because it is more comfortable left unanswered.
The ambiguity that is most easily dispelled is the kind that is most welcome, even desired, in life. The kind of which we would love to rid ourselves is much more difficult to remove.
My fear is not that we sometimes take comfort in our ambiguous self-deception. My fear is that we start to dream in the gray. Dreams that are ill defined and lack details, plans and action are doomed to fail. For a dream to turn to reality it must be an absolute in the mind of the dreamer. Otherwise it will forever remain in the realm of the nebulous.
There is only so much comfort in ambiguity. It is not enough to fill us and if we glut ourselves on it we will be left feeling sick with a bitter aftertaste in our mouths.
And yet there are areas where we find great comfort in the same sort of inability to know. Far more often than we may notice we will navigate into the comfortable murky gray waters of the indefinite. This blindness however, is self imposed and is curable. Rather, it could be cured if it were seen as a problem. But the sickness is such that we don’t even recognize the illness.
Take the average person for example. He will likely be neither hideously ugly nor wonderfully handsome. If he is average he will know this. He will accept that he is not movie-star-handsome by using the justification that he is also not an unfortunate creature with disfigured features. The thought is something like, “I’m no Brad Pitt but at least I’m not ugly.” The average man will sigh with relief that he is on neither extreme of the spectrum. The black and the white cancel each other out—but in doing so make the gray.
Intentionally staying in the gray gives leverage to self-deception because it’s not absolute. Light gray and dark gray aren’t distinguished. Why should they be? They’re both just gray. The average person tells himself, “I’m not ugly.” What he doesn’t ask though is how close he is to being ugly. Is he the difference between white and very, very light gray, or white and very, very dark gray? That question will not be answered because it is more comfortable left unanswered.
The ambiguity that is most easily dispelled is the kind that is most welcome, even desired, in life. The kind of which we would love to rid ourselves is much more difficult to remove.
My fear is not that we sometimes take comfort in our ambiguous self-deception. My fear is that we start to dream in the gray. Dreams that are ill defined and lack details, plans and action are doomed to fail. For a dream to turn to reality it must be an absolute in the mind of the dreamer. Otherwise it will forever remain in the realm of the nebulous.
There is only so much comfort in ambiguity. It is not enough to fill us and if we glut ourselves on it we will be left feeling sick with a bitter aftertaste in our mouths.
1 comment:
"What he doesn't ask though is how close he is to being ugly."
Classic. But then, who defines beauty?
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