When I was in elementary school, I continually heard from my mother that if she had to be a teacher, she would not want to be an English teacher or a Music teacher. In those subjects there was ambiguity, interpretation, subtlety between a pass and a fail. Between an A and a B. Opinion. If she had to be a teacher, she would be a math teacher. To her, in math there was only one right answer.

As I moved into algebra then calculus then quantum mechanics, I moved quickly on from the simple principles all math stands upon and learned that that simple idea, that there was only one right answer, was false. Math, in all its cold, callus logic, had its massive gray areas too. There are simple equations with two right answers. Solution sets with an array of answers. And the worst, hopeless equations that can never be determined.

How infuriating!

Left, or Right?

I have found that most kinds of binary thinking stem from a lack of understanding. Or a lack of effort. In college, one of my favorite classes was an honors course in Public Affairs. The first class I took was upon the paradoxes of the human condition. Life and death, too much choice leading to paralysis in decisions, and so on. We had to read a book a week and write a paper upon our interpretation of the author’s view on the current paradox.

This was the class where I learned quoting a fellow student as a reference in your paper was a thing frowned upon by the professor, a sitting State Senator.

One of the other things I remember from the class is a theory of how our perception shifts through life. We begin with a world that is black and white. We see everything from a child’s eyes, because, hey! We’re children. Empty or full. Hot or cold. Good or bad. As we age, as the constants we thought would never change, change, we uncover the complexity in life, see the differences and gradients. Everything becomes a hazy gray. We ask all the questions, fight for the causes we identify with, remake ourselves over and over. Then, as we gain more experiences and wisdom, as we try and fail and see where the hard lines truly are, we slowly move back into a black and white world. Maybe one with more shape and form, but back into our formed convictions. Ideals harden. Pains and heartbreak dig harsh caverns in our minds, spaces to never, ever cross again.

During my college years I obviously resonated with the idea of breaking open the barriers of right and wrong and letting everything intermingle, see what good life had to offer. What rules I was taught weren’t true. What prejudices were smokescreens? What new path could I forge? And ultimately, what warnings and walls were in place for a reason, lines that should not be crossed, barriers there to keep myself from injuring myself, learned again by the process of injuring myself?

Ah, to be young and stupid.

I still am in many regards.

Since then, I have continued to use its framework idea as a lens at times to view the world. I’ll test an idea, throw it in the air, push it to the limits in all directions it can go, see where the pitfalls are, see where the hard truths are, and find a space where both wisdom can be the bedrock and flexibility can remain. From it, I also try to remain aware of my slips into laziness, to never harden back into a rigid worldview as I age, to try and keep an open mind.

A Calcification of the Mind

Even as I try to remain introspective and flexible, I have found most people follow my professor’s theory. There is nothing new under the sun. Elders believe they know what is best. The youth rebel against their ideas. The stubborn old do not see how the world has shifted. The foolish young cannot accept they don’t know everything. The old guard perishes. The next guard takes up the banner. The cycle repeats forevermore.

I feel it’s a two-fold problem. It isn’t that those advanced in years don’t know anything anymore. The first problem is their experiences are different from those of their kids. What needs to be learned as a human cannot be learned in ten lifetimes! Maybe even in a hundred lifetimes! Knowledge and discernment take time. One generation fights in a war, learns loss and honor. One generation learns the value of rebuilding. One generation lives through a pandemic. One generation has the good life.

The second problem is a willful and unconscious forgetfulness. What is learned by everyone is eventually softened by the sands of time as the years march on. The elderly fought their battles twenty years ago! They forgot the daily stretches and years of fruitlessness, only remembered the best and worst of it all. Those with too much pride or too little humility believe they succeeded from their own smarts or guts. You can too! Their answer worked, it can work for you too, just listen to them, whipper snapper!

This, in my own terms, is a calcification of the mind. When someone wise is double blind, how they cannot see how the parameters have changed and they stubbornly think their solution remains valid, that it wasn’t all that bad. This is where the heat between the generations erupts. Some of the young want to follow good advice, but it’s not good. Some of the young beg to be understood but the old can only relate to their own experiences. They cannot fathom a world where computers are in the pockets of everyone. A world where AI is the answer to school papers, artwork, poems, conversations, companionship. A world where we might no longer be moving forward and things are getting worse.

In my day, things were great, why are you complaining!

An Orbit of One

Generational battles are fun, yelling on the internet has its place for entertainment. Please, if you want, yell at me here! We can go nowhere fast and hopefully not hurt many feelings.

What I want to ponder with the rest of our time here is the sphere of one. Back to the original question. I’m sure we will eventually think about society’s problems together here, but let’s get too close. What do you do when you stumble upon a problem so massive in your life, so unique to you alone, that there is no solution?

I’ve run up a few of these in my life thus far. I’m sure I’ll have more. What do we do, as a human, when we cannot win? When all solutions are invalid. When we lose no matter which direction we turn?

To give some examples… what do you do when the love of your life studently dumps you? When your child inexplicably passes away? When the doctor calls and it’s cancer? When something you’ve worked for for years is stolen or destroyed? The easy questions are easy. How do we deal with shipwreck?

Do you move to self-blame and grow depressed? You can reason away all the flaws you have, that you could have poured more into the relationship. You can play back the scene where you could have done something different in the moment, made a different decision to save your kids life.

Do you blame others and move to rage? God’s at fault! I’m a good person! Why is this happening to me! I’m so much better without that person’s baggage! I will do better!

How do we move on? How do we survive?

I don’t know.

I don’t know. That’s where I am at today. That’s why I’m thinking over this and admitting that I have no idea what to do. And… is that okay? Where I would want to tap those older and wiser than me, I can’t, because their situations and circumstances are different. Therapy helps in most situations, if you find the right person to help you through your pain. If you can get help that way, do. Most other people aren’t licensed in this soul-wrenching stuff. Their advice sucks.

It’ll get better. 

   I’m hurting now!

There’s a greater plan. 

   I don’t like it!

Focus on yourself. 

    I’m a rotting pile of spikiness! I don’t like me right now! Bah!

Time will heal you. 

    No, time just reminds me that some scars never heal!

Can the best thing really be to do nothing? Focus on the other joys in my life, accept that I have failed and live with my own flaws?

In the flaws there is beauty. Our flaws make us who we are.

Honestly, I still haven’t gotten to the point I believe that fully. We’ll get there. I have years and years ahead of me.

So far, I have found that in this time of a storm passed and the wreckage not fully removed, I need to constantly give myself grace. To listen to my heart, to know when I’m doing okay, to admit to myself when I’m not doing well. To be okay with stumbling and bleeding and in agony for as long as I need.

Will it take six months to heal? Two years? Will this hole and loss ever disappear? It might not. Part of me doesn’t want it to. Forgetting is not the answer. Growing and trying is all I can do. So that is all I will do.

For me specifically… today, I am meditating on the fact that some things, for some problems in life, there is no solution.

And that is okay.