A Field Guide to Feelings
Ambivalence
And what it has to do with creativity.
Two heads are better than one; you get multiple perspectives. Two eyes and two ears are better than one for the same reason; plus, you get a spare. Two legs and two feet are better than one, so you don’t have to hop everywhere you go. Two hands are better than one, so you can hold your coffee as you find your keys. Two parents are better than one, so one can follow the energetic toddler when the other is ready to drop.
But, two heads on the same body? That’s just weird. Isn’t it better to be single-minded? No one likes to be ambivalent and unable to decide, do they? It’s painful to sit on a fence, racked by doubt, hesitancy, and indecision. You’d rather be resolute and stay out of a muddied, hazy, confused quandary.
I’m not sure whether ambivalence is a single feeling or the presence of multiple conflicting feelings. It’s hard to decide. You can be sure ambivalence is not the same as indifference. Ambivalence is an excess of opinion, not a paucity of it. It’s such a glut of desire that you might rather have nothing.
Ambivalence is about the tension between two good things when you can’t have one without the other. Go one way, and the other pulls you back. You get along quite happily with not knowing whether you…
