Heroes Not Zombies

I think one of the most amazing superpowers we humans possess is the ability to hold an awareness of opposites at the same time. This ability to handle paradoxes, to know two seemingly incompatible facts are true, allows us to use our fabulous ability to synthesise – to resolve such paradoxes and opposites by stepping up to a higher level and “seeing” the whole.

This is one of my most favourite photos. It’s of an old well in the garden of the house I’ve lived in for the last seven years. It’s taken at sunset. Here in the Charente we are treated to the most glorious sunsets. They frequently pull me outside with my camera. I noticed that I’ve labelled this photo “crucible” in my photo library and when I looked at it again I was struck by how that label brings out the paradoxes apparent in the image.

This isn’t a crucible. It’s a receptacle for bringing water back up from the depths of the well. But the sky seemed on fire that night and so this metal bowl took on the appearance of a pot, or, indeed a crucible. So in that one image I see fire and water, and my imagination is sparked to think of cooking, of spells and alchemy, and of water sources and how we need to dig deep sometimes to find what we need.

I’m sure you’ll have read a story or seen a movie where the characters are like cardboard cutouts – all one dimension – good or bad. They just don’t convince us, do they? They are neither realistic nor interesting. The best characters are full of conflicting and competing traits and characteristics. They are multidimensional, interesting and realistic.

We have two cerebral hemispheres, one which engages with the world in a linear, analytic way, and the other which absorbs the world whole. So we process reality in both analytic and synthetic ways at the same time. We explore the parts and pieces whilst at the same time having the ability to take a wider, more comprehensive, holistic view.

However we explain it, a view like this is utterly beautiful and appealing, isn’t it?