How do we continue to embrace a nuanced existence in a polarized world?
I have struggled with this since childhood. Raised by a high school educated, Depression-era farm girl from the Midwest. A woman who possessed a level of wisdom and curiosity that betrayed her limited education. There was not a person who ever came into her her life on any quasi-intimate level who did not marvel at the extraordinary depth and breadth of her understanding of things that should have been beyond her grasp. Doris was a self-educated polymath of sorts. A woman extraordinaire in her time.
Everything about her oozed nuance. From politics to religion — those two issues “you didn’t discuss at the dinner table”, and everything in between. Of course we discussed politics and religion at our own dinner table. Just not at other people’s table. Particularly in the 1960s.
If you think things are hyperpolarized now, you certainly didn’t live through that decade. I was an adolescent boy watching the Vietnam War on television every night on the evening news. As well as the war protests on campuses all across the nation; assassinations; bombings by the Weather Underground; shootouts between police and the Black Panthers. I could go on for paragraphs describing what a young American boy witnessed on a daily basis. America was burning. Literally.
There was nothing seemingly nuanced back then. It was all black and white. That is everything but her. A woman so centered in both her thinking and behavior that on rare occasions she would shock us with admissions that made us laugh. It was her honesty that made her so real. No agendas. Just truth.
She was my mentor. Quietly encouraging me through our discussions as a young boy to take in as much information as possible. Every day something new and different to consider was prompted by the news and information we both absorbed from a variety of mediums — television, newspapers, magazines, books, or discussions in my school.
She gently directed me to always keep an open mind. Helping me to discover that certainty was a fool’s errand in a rapidly evolving world. She never used the word. But the message was clear. Life is nuanced.
I learned to approach it not with just a colorblind perspective; rather, processing it through a prism of the complete spectrum of colors and tonalities. Remembering that black is the absence of color. White is all of the colors combined. Deep knowledge is acquired over long periods of time. That only through the benefit of information, experience, and time can one really reach a richer understanding of the complexities of life.
It is human thought that so often resides in a world of black or white. Yet, experience and knowledge which gives rise to wisdom dwells in tones ranging from the most brilliant of primary colors, to even those grays tinted and etched with the deeper nuances of life. The gift of wisdom comes from the ability to look at the endless palette of colors in the multitude of varying threads of information that lies before you and create a nuanced tapestry of thought.
In the hope that sharing your thoughts with those humans whose beliefs and opinions reside in the extremes will eventually choose to open their minds to the gift of a more sublime understanding of the world. Becoming comfortable residing in the subtlety of the beautiful grays…
