I was responding to an e-mail from a buyer earlier today and afterwards just happened to think of the interesting concept of 2’s. The more I thought about it, the more interesting comparisons I started making. I suspect we’ve grown so used to 2’s that we don’t even consider them to exist. There’s right and left, forward and backward, up and down, light and dark, in and out, over and under, top and bottom, right and wrong, black and white, on and off, living or dead, one side or the other, day and night, good and bad, easy and hard, wet and dry, cold and hot, light and heavy, thin and fat, happy and sad, noisy and silent, hard and soft, clean and dirty, yin and yang, and all the other pairs of opposing 2’s there are in the world.
It causes one to consider what some great minds believe to be real balance within themselves and the world around them. Many have lives filled with broad swings of their pendulums where days are super highs or deep lows. Those motional roller-coasters that send people running for their pill boxes in an attempt to get themselves back in a realm of near normalcy. Unfortunately there are some who’ve grown so used to the highs and lows that they actually expect, and sometimes look for, and work at causing them to happen. We all have a few friends and relatives who always seem to be in a bit of a “dust storm” whenever talking to them. And there are those who won’t take something said or written for face value, but rather start drawing dark conclusions from what they believe to contain underlying meanings. Perhaps it’s an attempt to be noticed or possibly a way to get something dark started with this or that person by conveying their own fabricated descriptions of what they believe to have been the true intent of a simple and straight forward message. Scary isn’t it?
In thinking about it, if we would all work at placing ourselves between the opposing 2’s in our lives, then we would be in fact creating a balance of sorts with our own world and the one within which we live. So, if you take some of the 2’s from above and start with the first; what about not going left or right, but simply keep going straight? What about instead of going forward or back, we simply remain where were are and allow the world to make the move? Between black and white we find the wonderful shades of grey. I love looking at old photos that have all the subtleties of emotion being transmitted to the viewer. Oh and there’s the right and wrong. Are any of us truly and wholly right or wrong? Then comes good and bad. Sometimes I think we have to be a little bit bad to keep us working at becoming all the better. Clean and dirty is a real swing of the pendulum in my profession. There are those who have homes that are so clean, one feels as though they’re entering a museum or super sterile environment. But then on the flip side, I’ve been in homes when walking out, I’m in consideration of going straight home and burning my clothes. Yet again, the comparisons go on and on.
The thrust of this article is an encouragement for us all to learn balance between the opposing forces of those terrible 2’s that surround us. I’m sure many of you will be driving to work tomorrow thinking about all the other 2’s in your lives.
