In my last blog about Mount Rainier, I wrote about how we see different angles of reality. Truth is often complex, and there can be many accurate views of it.
Now I’m thinking about the way we often think in “sides,” and how often we often make the mistake of thinking in only two sides.
- “It’s either this way or that.” But what if it’s a third way besides this or that?
- “You’re either for this or against it.” But what if we’re partially for it and partially against it?
- “You’re either making money or you’re not.” But what if we’re building a business that’s not making money now but will make money later?
- “If you’re not having fun it’s not worth doing.” But aren’t there many things worth doing that aren’t fun, like visiting the dentist?
Psychologists often describe this as “dichotomous thinking,” where the word dichotomy means “a division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups.” We tend to imagine truth like we imagine a coin. There are only two sides.
Certainly there are many examples where two-sided thinking is right. Someone says the volleyball is a basketball, and they’re either right or wrong. The idea of truth itself is two-sided, meaning, if something isn’t true, it is false.
But there are many more realities in life where two-sided thinking falls flat, realities where life is multi-faceted, like a diamond that has dozens of “sides.” Instead of thinking our choice is between this or that, maybe it’s neither this or that. Or maybe there are ten options beside this or that.
Think back to Mount Rainier. At sunset, is the mountain pink or shadowy? It’s both. It’s pink from Seattle, and shadowy from Yakima. And it’s more than that. It’s half pink and half shadowy from space, and an array of blended colors from viewpoints that are neither eastward, westward, or downward.
In the same way there are many angles on the mountain, life and truth are multi-faceted. They’re more like diamonds than coins.
