Polarities and a gotcha moment!

Polarities – diametric opposites are part of our life, indeed part of our individuality. We need the knowledge and understanding that they give us – awake and asleep; light and dark; short and tall; left and right, up and down; love and hate; remembering and forgetting; then a big one – male and female; but the biggest of all polarities is life and death.

These polarities shape us because we cannot know the one without at least some knowledge of the other.

Because we (at least I don’t) know what life actually is – is it just the reaction of chemicals, or is it something that only quantum physics will reveal? – we need to be careful about how we treat or react to events in life.

We are unable to reach a position so removed from daily events to witness the interplay of the various threads (the warp and woof) that link all humans and in fact all life in one vast and unimaginably complex pattern. If we pull or cut one “thread” what effect will this have on our life, on the future or on the life of others? We can never know – all we can ever know is that there will most definitely be an effect. We don’t know what it is but it will certainly affect us in ways we cannot foresee. And we might not like the consequences!

The ancients called this Fate. Many legends warn us not to “play” with Fate. Playing with Fate was/is a human vanity and begets Hubris (the ancient Greeks used this term to describe a person’s attempt to equate themselves with the “Gods” who control events – not a good idea!). Now Hubris, as I have commented on before, seems to invite Nemesis (another ancient Greek term and name of the “Goddess” who is implacable in the pursuit of her cause, to track the effects of every action back to its doer). 

I came across a simple little (if bitter sweet) tale of the complexities of Life and our narrow minded, sometimes selfish, views on what we want and our imagined “control” of Fate and the events that influence our lives.

The tale goes something like this:

A young man is smitten with love for a girl. But it is an unrequited love – she does not reciprocate. However he cannot get her out of his mind.

Someone tells him that there is a “forgetting tree” – go to sleep in its shade and you will forget. The boy somehow finds this tree and goes to sleep in its shade. But when he wakes up he still remembers all about this girl.

He had forgotten how to forget!

Gotcha!!

Don’t try and outsmart Fate – or Life.