News from Peace Begins With Me

Life would be simple if everything were either black or white, good or bad, right or wrong. It would make decision-making so much easier. Life, however, isn't this way. Life is a rich tapestry of competing demands that require each of us to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of a number of possibilities, anticipate their impact both short and long term, and then choose.

And so when one looks at the world through the lens of black/white, right/wrong, good/bad, victim/villain, we do a disservice, not only to others, but to ourselves as well. I deprive myself of the opportunity to deepen my understanding of an issue or individual when my perception is overly simple and superficial.

I regularly witness this over simplification of reality in the reporting of events like war. I notice how the language used is often simple and polarized: freedom fighters vs. insurgents, coalition forces vs. terrorists, heroes vs. villains, good guys vs. bad guys. Politicians are regularly guilty of reducing complex issues to right/wrong, left/right, liberal/conservative thinking. As a result we compress complex reality into small containers rather than engage the richness of life in a respectful dialogue to better understand our modern world.

It pains me to see life treated this way - reduced through the use of words and phrases to a shadow of their complex selves. But I want to draw out a larger issue here. I want to focus on what happens when we see the world through the lens of right/wrong; when we paint others as good/bad.

Ray Woollam, an unusual character who lives on Vancouver Island has written a number of thought provoking books including, "On Choosing With A Quiet Mind" and "Have a Plain Day". Woollam believes many of us spend our entire lives avoiding thinking, considering, weighing, or choosing. Instead we do what he calls "binning". Woollam observes that most human beings act as if there are only two bins. One bin has the label 'good' written on the side. The other bin is given the label 'bad'. Their entire thinking process is reduced to stuffing life into either of these two bins. Woollam notices we call these bins by different names - right/wrong, good/bad, left/right, liberal/conservative, but the effect is the same - we diminish life to an over simplified game of "binning".

Binning, according to Woollam, "is a colossal avoidance of the human capacities to accept difference, to consider, to think, to choose, to understand, or to learn. Binning will not change the situation, but it will change me in a manner that renders me tense, frustrated, or ineffective."

The overly simplified judging of others and issues creates an emotional reactivity that prevents and avoids more considered thought. Why investigate a situation further when a decision has already been rendered, when the conclusion has already been reached? Why struggle to understand others who perceive the world different than I do? Simply stick a label on them, and move on.

I recognize I spent much of my life 'binning'. As a result I was emotionally reactive. I lived in constant judgment. I saw people as either 'for' what I believed or 'against' what I believed. It took me years of suffering to discover that the source of my suffering was my way of seeing the world, rather than the world itself. This overly simplistic refusal to think, to understand, or to learn is destructive. It hurts everyone involved.

If we truly want to be wise and healthy human beings, if we want to live in peace and harmony with one another, it is essential that we recognize that our way of seeing the world can cause agitation, reactivity, and wars rather than compassion, understanding, and wisdom. We all deserve better. It starts with our willingness to see beyond black and white.

Cheers,
Ted