A Black And White World
Imagine having to live in a world without colors. Your fashion sense would not differ much from that of the goths - actually, the term “Goth” might not exist, or it might hold an entirely different meaning altogether. Your coffee will always be black, regardless of the variations. Both twilight and sunset shares the same monotonous flare. Life would be boring. But what if I were to tell you that life, is in fact, only a shade of black and white? Where the spectrum of colors that comes in between our daily life, right or wrong, do or do not - they are all frowned upon by humanity. Trying to say that we don’t live in a Black and White society is like a bad case of Murphy’s Law set in motion - it’s evidently there, we just choose not to see it. A rainbow of emotions and opportunities just waiting to be discarded again and again.
The color red has always been associated with Anger. We know that spite, hatred and pretty much everything that has to do with the destructive force of our human nature is born from anger. In fact, the word “anger” is usually used interchangeably with “money”, when the “root of all evil” is being discussed. What most of us fail to realize is that we tend to focus on the wrong word. The correct term to throw light upon is “root”. Anger isn’t destruction, and in a really gray world, I’d say it doesn’t even cause it. It merely brings on a metaphoric waterfall. You can choose to be overwhelmed by it’s crushing waves, or rise above it. Where Anger ends, Action takes over. You see, ultimately, it is us that bring on the wrath, not Anger.
But don’t get too proud of yourself just yet.
Yellow represents pride. Pride in our work, of course. Pride is ourselves, always. Pride in our achievements, maybe. Pride in a new, shiny car - a step too far. There is always a fine line between an intangible proudness versus one that is tangible. For instance, we can take pride in our promotion at work, your colleagues are happy for you, your friends can’t congratulate you enough - with that new raise, you get a new car and talk about it - you’re deemed nothing more than a showoff. We are asked to take pride in our work, but can never be too full of ourselves. We are told to fight off any temptations to boast, and so it always will be a struggle. A never ending battle between grace and pride. You don’t want to find the windscreen of your car smashed into bits and pieces because of a slight trumpet blowing, your co-workers will only celebrate the intangible.
That which they cannot see, cannot harm their ego - or is it?
Lets go on to jealousy. It’s common to be jealous. I, for one, was brought up to be competitive. To work hard, to fight for my rights, to find my own place in life. We were told, since young, to study hard and be the cream of the crop. How many of us can reach the top? It’s funny that one of the virtue we should be pursuing is that of grace and amicability, but what we are in constant pursuit is to win. And when we don’t, we turn Green - with Envy. It’s confusing, to say the least. We can’t have both, just one of two.
That is just sad.
Sorrow, sadness, despair, desperation, feeling Blue - they all fall under the same umbrella, they bring about depression, which rains down on them once they find comfort with each other under the shelter of misery. Misery loves company, after all. We view sadness and tears as a sign of weakness, but why should we? Crying isn’t a sign of weakness, since birth, it’s always been a sign that we are alive. Without enveloping our emotions whole, we cannot move on with our lives. But swallowing them, and dealing with them brings out the well of shame in us which we have become so efficient at avoiding. “Everybody struggles against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It is the thing that lets us say goodbye.” - Jeffery Eugenides, author of Middlesex. Without letting it wash over us, we can never safely or confidently say that we’ve let anything go.
Love, or love lost,
Intimacy is a four syllable word for “Here is my heart and soul, please grind them into hamburgers, and enjoy”. It is both desired and feared. Difficult to live with, but impossible to live without. Coined by the writers of Grey’s Anatomy, this quote represents fully the amazing contradictions found in our every day’s wants. And we know it well too, we just forget that we do. It’s coming to a point where I think we all need a Pink bottom cupid to prick us at our clueless moments, and deliver messages about the fine line between love and hate, give and take - and how we should appreciate the colors in life.
To take the good with the bad, the bitter with the sweet. To do away with “or” and reinvent our perspective with “with”. Because only then will we appreciate what is in between.
Amandine Guisez, author of Colorful World, says this, "those who deal with Color speak the same language, a language concerned with the intensity, brilliance or depth of a particular tone, value and shade." Like Amandine, I believe that we should all speak with color, and experience the brilliance which will be invited through it. I don’t think the world will change into a better place, or change a lot even, just by us accepting shades of other moralities. But at the very least, it should become a more interesting one, where Black and White are merely bookends on the shelf, with multiple perusing opportunities in between.