Walt Whitman once said that every moment of light and dark is a miracle. I have always read the quote out of context, so I have no idea if he was referring to the blessing of both joy and sorrow, or something esoteric like mankind's dual nature. Maybe he was just musing on just how cool it is to play with matches. (Come to think about it, all those things are pretty amazing.)
It's a lovely thought, really. The miracle of light and dark. In our current Us vs. Them culture, everything from natural disasters to local politics gets rubber stamped as either GOOD or EVIL. Despite our complex HD technology and ability to map most of the human genome, we're still basically a black and white world, willing to paint everything with broad strokes.
Even so, there's an infinite amount of grayscale in there if we just pay attention. And every bit of it is miraculous.
13 comments:
You said it!! I've always said that eventually there will be no race relations, because we all will be a lovely shade of gray/brown. It's the middle that is created from all of the contrasts anyway, so let's just meet there. It might be playing it safe, but when you put all of the extremes together, you are left with a nice blending of all of them.
Oh and by the way, nice point ;)
True, it's mostly gray. Everything is on a spectrum with its opposite. Shades of gray predominate. On the other hand, sometimes when we need to take action, we need to see things in black and white. When we need to make a choice, we've got to go beyond gray.
Ah, Laurie is writing again!
Gorgeous thought. Gorgeous picture.
Agreed, Mr. E. The middle is not always the best, for sure. I needed coffee when I wrote earlier. ;P
Sure, there are at least two sides. The Nazis had a side, but who'd give it equal weight?
Jesus, someone could take Laurie's philosophical meanderings and use it to bring up the Nazis? I hate the internet.
Lovely thoughts, Laurie. I think you're over the heads of some people.
Jason
This is a beautiful post. Here's to complexity. Here's to contradictory thoughts.
Excellent point, Laurie! Here's to a election season cheering for neither the red nor blue team.
WV: kinesser
Yesh, but listen ... the world was a much nicer place before that gottdam Henry Kinesser started meshing up our foreign policy. Another bourbon on the rocks, please ...
Am I missing the point if I think this is purely good?
Lovely picture and thought. You are a joy.
Btw, I'm sure if it were around, the internet would have been included in that which Whitman suggests we ought re-examine and "dismiss whatever insults your soul."
What Jon said.
I'm so glad I married you, Jon. <3
Thanks for the responses, everyone.
I want to make clear that I am against the Nazis.
I mix my grey paint out of RED and GREEN - plus a little white. I take great pleasure in doing this and the grey is much more interesting than if it were mixed with black and white.
Post a Comment