About the Balance between Positive and Negative

Part 1 – the dilemma of the balance between positive and negative

How to Live on the Dark Side of the Moon

“Out of our greatest despair comes our greatest victory”. I think I am quoting someone, but I have no idea who it is.

One of the things I dislike most in life is having to make difficult decisions. It’s stupid, I know. Especially for someone so fond of learning about human nature. This area of personal vulnerability is so taboo for me that, most of the time, I don’t even realize I have dilemmas at all! 

“If you could ask God just one question what would it be?” Can you guess what I would come up with? Nothing. I would probably just ask „How are you?” and would not even be upset with an answer like “Fine.” This is how much I resent having dilemmas.

One of the things I love most in life is having revelations. Contemplate the stupidity of the big picture for a moment: I want revelations, but no dilemmas, please. Do not worry about the frequency of words like „stupid” and „stupidity”. In my limited experience, revelations often have a lot to do with stupidity. Either you contemplate your stupidity first and a revelation results, or you somehow acquire a revelation that enables you to contemplate your stupidity.

So, of course, I recently faced a tormenting dilemma and said hello to Little Miss Depression – since it is unacceptable for me to have dilemmas. I am resisting the urge to write another 50 lines on how I handle Little Miss Depression – I used to be very proud of my methods. 

The analysis of what follows is my way of having fun. The balance between Positive and Negative.

My dilemma had, in my view, complicated ethical implications. I agonized over having thoughts I did not want to have and over wanting things I did not want to want. The content is irrelevant. As you probably noticed, the more you resent a thought, the harder it is to ignore it. Yes, thoughts are just thoughts and they come and go. Nothing gives them any power… except your attention. And, when you dislike a thought you become negatively attached to it. Had you succeeded in being neutral towards it, you would not have become attached to it. Since any learning experience is somewhat humiliating for the ego, I was “delighted” to notice my inability to be neutral towards a thought, after having recently indulged in the pleasant feeling of self-confidence in the area. This is an old habit of the Universe – demonstrating the awesomeness of its creativity in contrast with my limited views. Silvana says “I am…”, and the Universe proves “Silvana is not…”. Silvana says “I am very good at managing my thoughts!”, the Universe says “Manage this one!”. Silvana says “I do not particularly like to read” and the Universe makes her read avidly until she feels like her eyes are about to pop out of her head. Never make a bet with the Universe! And I will now let go of this scheme, because using it to analyze my experiences gets me stuck in the area of vanity issues, which, at this point, I consider to be a waste of time. 

Yesterday, right at the highest point of the confusion and desperation caused by my dilemma, a revelation kicked in – for which I take no credit. “OK, so what is it that I DO want out of this situation???” I asked myself “If I were to wake up tomorrow morning and find that my dilemma had been dissolved – that all the obstacles had been removed and all the negative consequences neutralized – what would I want?” I paused. And then I realised I did not know what I wanted to happen. All the tension the dilemma had created instantly cleared. Say what you will, but realizing you do not know what you want is a very big deal! However, I had not imagined one could feel so happy about it. “I don’t know what I want! I don’t know what I want! YES!!!” There we go! Guilt-free! Since I had not stopped before to carefully consider what I wanted, I was needlessly feeling guilty about things I only thought I wanted. And then there was silence in my head. And in this newly created space, another revelation pops up. Ironically – the revelation of what I DO want. Even more ironically, had I known I wanted that, the dilemma never would have come to be. The humiliating part is where I have to ask myself: would I have been capable of realizing what I wanted in the absence of the dilemma that caused me so much discomfort?

This is a small part of something I am working on right now. Something I call “living on the dark side of the Moon”. I am starting to be more aware of the continuous changes that affect any entity – changes I like to compare to the changes the Moon goes through during a month. This is my metaphor: when “the Moon is full” when you are at the peak of the wave, you feel full of energy, self-confident, and optimistic and things seem to work out the way you want them to. But then, “the Moon starts to change” again. It gradually becomes covered in darkness and then “creatures” that had been confined to the hidden face of the Moon come out to play. That is when vanity, fear, regrets, shame and failures begin to nibble at us. Leaving aside the metaphor, it seems to me that in real life these fluctuations of positive and negative energies and events somehow generate each other. Last night Little Miss Depression gave me the gift of a precious revelation. I could throw in a cliché like “Ah, yes! There is no change without destruction and there is no evolution without change”. But I would rather make an authentic effort to understand how these fluctuations work. 

Thanks to a very elegant succession of events, as has often been generously granted to me, I understood that the “creatures” living on the dark side of the Moon should be carefully observed and that trying to make them disappear is useless and maybe even impossible. Parts of me that I consider to be good and parts of me that I consider to be bad are ever-present, although not always visible. And if these parts somehow generate and fuel each other, I want to know:

– If there is any way to control the exchanges between positive and negative intrapersonal phenomena. Where is the switch?

– Do I want to control the fluctuations (exchanges between positive and negative intrapersonal phenomena)?

– Most important of all, how to live on the dark side of the Moon.

Please kindly throw in your ideas and experiences if you feel like it. 

Oh, and the black cat in the picture is a very appropriate choice. It was by far the most destructive cat I have ever had (and I have had a few…), but it was the one I related to best.

Part 2 – my personal (tested) solution

OK, OK, so it did take one whole year to find out how to live on the dark side of the Moon.

And it’s not like no one else had the answer either. I think the answer has been “advertised” in various forms and widely enough to be fairly accessible in a large library or on the Internet – given the right amount of determination.

But the point is that after I found it (which was many many years ago), I had to practice to make it work for me. It’s like the difference between seeing someone perform a certain choreography and trying to do the same thing yourself. 

I start fidgeting when I contemplate concepts such as “practice” and “patience”. Unfortunately for the likes of me, discipline is everything – or so it seems at this particular point in my life. I am more comfortable with doing lots of different things all at once for short periods. So you can imagine I was not exactly well equipped to learn this particular lesson.

And here it goes:

When you find yourself on the dark side of the Moon, be still and watch yourself. Do not push or pull in any direction. For example, do not look for the company of people if you are feeling insecure, but do not try to avoid them if you feel vulnerable. This is not a time to fix problems. This is a time to pay attention to yourself. There will be no criticizing, no lamenting, no charging, no distractions, no expectations for results of any kind – there will only be watching and waiting. Do not even think “this will pass” (which it probably will, but that is not the point). Watching and waiting only. Got it? Good. Now hold it. Stay like that. 

Realistically speaking, I know you probably will not (want to) do the above, but, since doing otherwise only seems to increase suffering, I thought it might be worth mentioning.  

I managed to do this a couple of times and it was worth it. Does not mean I will be able to do it all of the time… (When I chose the title for this post, I was referring to an ability that other people possess. I had to cultivate my non-action skills with great effort.) I hope you find a smoother path.