Attractive Repulsion


I am convinced there are always two forces at play in human relationships. The force of attraction and the force of repulsion.

What do I mean by that? Well, let's start with what's obvious. We are distinct people. I am me and you are you and we are different. But how different are we? We both have bodies, but they are different bodies. We both have minds, but they are different minds. We both have experiences, but they are different experiences.

We can choose to focus on the similarities or the differences. That's what I mean by attraction and repulsion. When we focus on what divides us, we increase the division. We further separate ourselves from each other. When we choose to focus on what we share in common, we close the distance between each other. We begin to see ourselves in the face of the other.

Is one better than the other? I'm not sure. I don't like conflict, so I tend to be a unifier. In the sense of reducing conflict, attraction is helpful. But too much attraction, too much homogeneity can lead to a loss of the individual. We lose our uniqueness and the world becomes less vibrant. So, I would say, like all things, it's a balance.

Picture a line with two endpoints. Pick something you believe in and place it on one end. Now place the thing that drives you crazy on the opposite end. The tension between the two is where life is lived. Without this tension, life would be dull and uneventful.

We need our opposition to grow. Having an alternative viewpoint helps us think through why we believe what we believe. Without someone poking at our truths, we would never know how true they really are. Resistance strengthens things.

Having an opposing view also helps with controlling our emotions instead of having our emotions control us. Nobody likes to be told they are wrong. It triggers primal instinctual responses because in the past, being wrong meant you could starve or be eaten by a tiger. Learning how to sit in the position of someone calling you wrong helps evolve our emotional resiliency. I'm not saying to be a doormat. You need wisdom to know the difference between a fruitful conversation and being torn down as a person.

Maybe the healthy response is instead of looking to either unify or separate, we learn to cycle between the two. Like a pendulum, we sway between both balancing the need for group safety with the beauty of individualism. And in the swinging, we learn to maintain our center, knowing that life is progressing and evolving. We don't have all the answers and we can allow ourselves to discover new truth in unexpected places.

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