Embracing the discomfort of contradiction
Hello you ring around the rose-y.
Maybe it's because we are in this winter/spring shoulder season where the world can feel sun-soaked and verdant one day and blanketed in snow squalls the next. Maybe it is because the pandemic has pulled the rug out from under my basic sense of up and down/ right and wrong/ left and right at times. Maybe it is the fact that I am a libra. Whatever the reason, I have been thinking a lot this week about dissonance and the futility of seeking balance right now.
We have played with this idea before in these dispatches, but now-- in this miasma of COVID-19 chaos-- I feel an extra-strong compulsion to try find some balance and equilibrium. However, in doing so, I find it really difficult to hold ALL THE THINGS and still feel like I am giving everything the space and time it deserves. In part, this has a lot to do with the sheer volume of truths we have to hold in our hands, heads and hearts right now. But even in the best conditions, psychologically, humans find it difficult to find balance.
F. Scott Fitzgerald liked to say "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Okay, sure. However, he did not have to live through a global pandemic in 2020 (well actually he did in 1918... but stay with me), and he did not have to contend with things like dreading making dinner every night, and yet dinner being the one thing you look forward to each day. Or feeling deeply grateful to the world but also deeply scared of the world in the same moment. Or being desperate to connect with other human beings, but then being left exhausted by one's virtual social life. Or fearing the prospect of death for ourselves and others, but also remembering that death is often not as scary as we expect.
Living in this perpetual, low-level state of cognitive dissonance is challenging at the best of times, and (surprise, surprise) we humans are not super great at working with these psychological shades of grey. When we experience a clash between our core values, our brains "associate beliefs with specific situations and make it easier to retrieve those beliefs in the situations with which they are associated." But what is your feeble human brain to do when your core values clash and you have no blueprint for navigating this dissonance? Most of us have never been in a situation like this pandemic, and at every turn of the news cycle, our values are being challenged.
And so everything feels just a little off kilter. The good, the bad and the ugly: all of it feels vaguely surreal and out of step with what we know (or thought we knew) about the world and our selves.
Of course, sitting with cognitive dissonance can be uncomfortable. But it is also in discomfort that we can learn a lot about ourselves and the world around us. In fact, a lot of spiritual practices are designed to throw us off balance, and ask us to embrace situations that challenge our way of seeing the world. Take Zen koans for example, which involves contemplating a story, question or statement to provoke the "great doubt" and throw our understanding of the world into a tailspin.
In some ways, right now we are living in a series of koans-come-to-life, and this moment is providing lots of opportunities to explore and challenge our understanding of what matters.
See! Even this observation in and of itself creates a dissonance for me: I feel discomfort, empathy and regret as I see all of the painful cognitive dissonance we are all are navigating; and yet, I also feel that the reality of this is okay, and even good in a way-- while the virus is a threat, the pain and discomfort of dissonance will not destroy us-- and I feel hopeful and inspired by the growth opportunity this difficult-to-navigate state offers to all of us and the world at large.
And so here I am, trying to hold both of those feelings-- the empathy and the inspiration. One small example of the many contradictions I am holding. And feeling confused, awkward and slightly unmoored by it all.
And so you likely are too, holding your own conflicting truths. And probably not doing a great job either.
We are all struggling with the sheer fullness of this moment. Our arms are so full of the breadth and depth of life, and it is difficult to look at all of it and have it make sense. But maybe that is okay. And maybe we actually want to lean into this state of dissonance a bit.
There is a power in finding clarity, but there is also a power in being able to sit with discomfort and contradiction. So let's play... maybe you want to go down the koan rabbit hole a bit. There are lots of examples of koans to explore (here and here as a start). But this is one of my favourites to ponder:
Out of nowhere, the mind comes forth.
-- from The Diamond Sutra
Feel welcome to pause and to sit with it for a minute or two.
Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...........
Or if that doesn't float your boat, why not look around and take examples from your own experience: try being present to some of the itchiness you feel this week, and sit with the inevitable dissonance that you will find there. What is there to notice? What is this itchiness telling you about your core beliefs, what is important to you, what you value? What is it telling you about what has changed for you? What you want to change? What is it telling you about the inconsistencies and contradictions in your own belief systems? The answers to some of these questions will feed in to what the future will look and feel like for you. How exciting (and terrifying) is that?!
Very!
So... enjoy exploring the dissonance and imbalance you are feeling. And I mean that-- enjoy it-- no stress, friends. In the end, everything is what it is, and we are allowed to live with our contradictions too. Because as Walt Whitman wrote: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes).”
Thank you for being you, with all of your contradictory largeness and your beautiful multitudes. You are loved, in whatever ways you are able to show up today, cognitive dissonance and all.
But wait! Perhaps all of this talk of contradiction is feeling a bit too intense on a sunny Sunday morning? Then please feel free to contemplate the past, present and future of punctuation marks.
Still too much realness? Then check out this poem of first lines of emails received during quarantine.
From one imbalanced person to another, I am glad that we can be dissonant together. I hope you enjoyed this dispatch, and have a koan-filled week!
Until next Sunday,
The Earnest Platypus