Breaking Binary.
How do you find peace after a binary conflict? How do you find a balance in a situation where there are only two possible outcomes, and your preferred outcome is never going to make the other side happy?
What can you do when the situation creates so much tension, animosity and hatred that the very idea of peace seems impossible, and the only option seems to be a continuation of hostilities until one side destroys the other?
We seem to be heading in that direction faster than we can possibly imagine.
This weekend I witnessed two conflicts. One of words, ideologies, philosophies and principles. The other was a conflict of strength, endurance, technique and violence. Both contests were bloody, one figuratively, one literally, yet both led to more anguish, hatred and threats of revenge and further violence.
Indeed in one of these, the possible violence after the first conflict took less than a minute to manifest.
And it will probably not end there.
So how do we change this? How do we reverse this suicidal pathway that we seem to be driving down at full speed, completely unaware of destruction that awaits us? What can we do, in our own way, that will find a pathway through for all of us that allows us to find peace and harmony?
The answer is in the title of this piece, and in the way I structured the first and third paragraphs. We have to break binary (where there are only 2 options), and become one.
In the first paragraph I used words such as ‘you, only, other’, words that denote a separation in a binary sense. In the third paragraph, I used words such as ‘we, us, all’, words that indicate unity, togetherness, wholeness.
Because unless we learn that we are inseparably connected to each other, and that my victory at your expense is no victory at all, we will continue to struggle and escalate our wars of words into a conflict of chaos.
When WE become ONE, WE have to discover outcomes that find balance for EVERYBODY. When WE become ONE, WE have to care about EVERYONE involved in the equation. When WE become ONE, WE lose OUR addiction to winning, and instead find the opposite of winning/losing, which is sharing.
But to do that, we have to be willing to give up our need to be better, to have it our way, to ‘crush’ our opponents, to ‘win at all costs’.
We have to find enough peace, strength, courage and love in our hearts that we can reach out to those who consider themselves our enemies and be open and honest with them, finding ways through the storms we all face.
Because if you don’t have peace in your heart, how can you expect to lead others to it?
You can find your peace in the absence of anyone else, if you have the courage to seek it. Then, you can share it with others. Only together can we bind up the wounds of our world, and become who we are supposed to be.
Together as one.
If this has touched you today, please consider sharing this post. Hopefully together we can help heal the disconnect facing all of us.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings