Japanese author, Haruki Murakami, has offered wisdom to this moment in United States history. He notes that regardless of how high we build the walls, that which lies beyond artificial structures will still be present and a “danger” to the illusory safety found within. W. H. Auden offered a hint at the dark side of life within walls that are too tight, declaring, “We have made for ourselves a life safer than we can bear.” (Yes, all walls and boundaries are “artificial.”)
Boundary issues arise from the simple phenomenon of definition. The definition of anything includes the exclusion of “everything else” so that a particular “thing” can be given attention, can have an identity. For example, a blogging friend of mine has entitled her blog, “Defining Yellow.” This young woman appears to understand that even a simple phenomenon as a color requires the ability to distinguish it from the rest of the color spectrum. From the “ancient” memory of my own youth, I want to cry out, “Why hell, yellow cannot be defined! It simply is and attempting to define it is crazy!” But yellow would not exist without the “supporting cast,” of the rest of the color spectrum which our conscious mind is able to shut out. To illustrate, imagine that everything in the world was yellow. If that were the case, then yellow would not “exist”; for, the very word, “exist” means to “stand out” from a context. (The word “exist” comes from the Latin terms “ex” and “stere,” “ex” meaning to stand out of and “stere” that which means, “pure.”) If everything in our world was yellow, we would not be able to recognize yellow as it would be taken for granted.
Murakami explained the subtle peril of definition in this historical political moment we live in:
…no matter how high a wall we build to keep intruders out, no matter how strictly we exclude outsiders, no matter how much we rewrite history to suit us, we just end up damaging and hurting ourselves… just as all people have shadows, every society and nation, too, has shadows, (and) if there are bright, shining aspects, there will definitely be a counterbalancing dark side. If there’s a positive, there will surely be a negative on the reverse side…at times we tend to avert our eyes from the shadow, those negative parts. Or else try to forcibly eliminate those aspects. Because people want to avoid, as much as possible, looking at their own dark sides, their negative qualities. But in order for a statue to appear solid and three-dimensional, you need to have shadows. Do away with shadows and all you end up with is a flat illusion. Light that doesn’t generate shadows is not true light. You have to patiently learn to live together with your shadow and carefully observe the darkness that resides within you. Sometimes in a dark tunnel you have to confront your own dark side.
NOTE: See “Defining Yellow” blog at—https://definingyellow.com/
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