Opposition
It’s easy to set up one’s life as “me versus the world.” There’s inner strength to be found in opposition, but is this a good kind of strength?
I’m brought back this morning to the writing of James Carse, specifically Finite and Infinite Games and The Religious Case Against Belief. One of the themes explored in these books is opposition, the “them” in “us versus them.” You can’t have an us without a them, and if you’re concerned with protecting your own self or group or whatever there’s no choice but to draw a wall around what’s yours. Everything outside that wall is the other.
How does conflict end when those are the conditions? If you need the opposition to maintain identity, there’s no way to remove the opposition. This is self-sabotage.
I create opposition in my mind every day. That driver, those kids. Either one of my “kind of people” or one of “those people.” I know I do it, and while I catch myself sometimes, I’m sure there’s a lot I don’t even clue into. I wonder what would happen if all those walls came down at once. Would I be strong and secure? Would I need to be?
