TwIsTeR Insights: Exploring The Grey Area

Filed under: by: wj

Human beings are exceptionally neat creature by nature. We enjoy clean streets and clean shores. We enjoy sorting and making it neat. Not many of us dare to get our hands dirty, figuratively or literally speaking. It is this compulsion to cleanliness which leads us to classify and compartmentalise every thing that we do. We are labelled immeadiately after we are born, wrapped in either a blue towel or a pink one. We created maths, an eternal realm of absolutes and accuracies. We hate, absolutely hate, messiness. In everything.


Unfortunately, when it comes to philosophy, moral issues or just life in general, things are seldom neat. They involve something that we avoid alot: The Grey Area. Yes, that grey area. Not balck, nor white, but freakin' grey.It sucks for us human beings, who enjoy the thoughts of rationalisation, and the neatness of compartmentalisation that requires us to think less. Questions start to form. Despicable questions such as How grey is grey? Closer to white or to black? What does this grey signify? So, with this grey, do we go with the white measure or the black measure in terms of action? 

Therefore, we decide to choose a side, either white or black. Since the grey is still grey, we are divided: The Whites in one side, the Blacks on the other. So, with 2 divided sides, we humans do what we are so good at doing when there is an opposing party. We fight. One shouts "It has to White!!"  The other screams back "No, you bloody @#$^ !! It has to be #$% Black!!" And there they fight, 2 opposing sides, perhaps for all eternity, all because neither side can simply agree that it is simply grey.

What exactly am I talking about? My answer to you is, pick something. The issue of abortion? Science vs Religion? Atheism vs Religion? Religion vs Religion? Communism vs Capitalism? Racism? Sex? So many complex issues, many of which have been fought about in wars. You see, humans love to rationalise, but do not enjoy thinking. They love to bring up reasons. Reasons on why god exists. Reasons why homosexuals ought to be prosecuted. Reasons to save the Earth. But when asked to think; to go beyond ourselves and consider the other side, many of us shudder in fear. Why? Because in or der for the Whites to consider the side of the Blacks, or vice versa, they have to cross the hated boundary of the Grey. In other words, they have to think, and we abhor it.

We will say, what for think? It is black because of this reason or that reason. Which of course the Whites will come up against with their own reasons. 

In fact, this has trenscended complex issues and into our tastes. We dare not venture into the grey area to experiment with something that we are not used to. A friend of mine told me that she only listens to Chinese music. And asked her, "Only chinese? Nothing else? No English music? Or Tamil?" She looked back at me, with a face full of disgust, "What English? Tamil? No way lor. Only Chinese." By saying this satement, she is literally putting her foot down, psychologically that there are no good Tamil music, or any other music for that matter. We are the same. How many of us has listened to a genre of music, lets say heavy metal, and dismissed it right away after one song. Why? Perhaps that one song was the only lousy one? Perhaps you might enjoy part of the performance, i.e. the electric guitar, rather than the whole band? Why dismiss the grey area?

The lists goes on. We have to be right, or have to be wrong. It cannot be a little of both. It cannot be that we are neither right nor wrong. For example, stealing is wrong. A statement that condemns the people who steal to feed their family. Or murder is wrong. What if the man you are murdering is Hitler, and therefore save many many lives by doing so? Morality cannot be defined by the niceness of black and white. The way society is built, or the way human nature is, morality issues areprobably all different shades of grey.

It is also prevalent in politics. In the States, are you a democrat or a republican? Why cant it be both? For certain issues, im a democrat, for others, im a republican. By putting my vote into one party, will deny the other parties' good points.

This is the exact definition of thinking outside the box. The box is societies views that are force fed into us. Views that we have learnt to accept as the truth. Systems that we have to follow. Rules that we have to obey. To think outside the box is literally to dig deep and think beyond these contraints. To be extremely messy. Its no wonder why many great thinkers are untidy by nature, from their appearance to their handwriting.

Im not saying don't have an opinion. Far from it. In fact, I'm pleading with you to have an opinion, one that is thought over and weighed. And it doesnt have to be clearly cut decision that conforms to people's idea of classification. For example, for me personally, I believe God exists. But I do not believe in prayer. So why not? Give it a try. Think deep when asked abt issues. Do not be afraid to give your own opinion, radical as it may be. Look on both sides of an issue. Lets not be afraid of the Grey Area.

2 comments:

On June 13, 2009 at 12:39 PM , Hayley/Shu Fen said...

Nah, I'm not afraid of the gray area.

In fact, I believe in the gray area.

I'm stumbling around in it, deep, dark and misty, groping for a signpost, a landmark, or anything I can hold onto.

I think it's not so much of a black or white issue because even for people who embraces the gray area, we're still looking for something definite.

It's human nature. We hate uncertainty. I'm seeking a specific, definite point in the gray area to stand on and I think that's the hardest part.

At the end of the day, we're all seeking something absolute, that will stand in all cases. Some who are quick to judge and take the easy way out take either black or white, whilst the more cautious ones hover around in the gray area not quite sure what to do.

Is the latter better than the former? I'm not sure.

 
On June 14, 2009 at 1:14 PM , wj said...

heya shoe! I noticed that I spelt gray wrongly after u commented. This is from blogging late at night.

Well, the definition of the gray are is not to have a definite point, so im afraid finding a signpost in the mist is a futile attempt.

I guess those who do embrace the gray area is also those who embrace uncertainty and accept that it is part of what we do. In a way that is true. No matter hw many answers we find, there will still be questions remaining. Accepting the gray area is to accept the beauty in that, even in the pursuit for truth.