The Extremes

I've always been an extreme person.  I'm either blissfully happy or completely depressed.  I either clean my whole apartment or I don't clean it at all.  I love a job or I hate it.  I either love you or would rather not know you at all.  I either relish the fact that I'm an extreme person or deny it completely.  

The funny thing is that I've also always been fascinated by dichotomy's, and often find peace in believing they are true.  If one were to look at this blog or my journals over the years they would see that I use the word dichotomy a lot--usually when I've had a revelation of some kind.  Which makes life damn confusing.  I'm an extremist in a grey world.  

An extremist in the non-fundamental, anti-unibomber, ticked-off-at-Pat Robertson kind of way that is. 

One of my favorite quotes:

"And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength.  Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter." (John Milton's "Areopagitica", 1644)

Truth and lies are extremes, but they have to both exist in their extremes in order to have any value, or, ironically, truth to their existence.

My write-up in my university yearbook summed up the dichotomy's of lessons learned:

Wait on God, go with your gut

Be independent, permit vulnerability

Say yes, set boundaries

Take risks, we are all just people

Choose joy, live honestly

Confidence determines opportunity, humility breathes freedom

Rest.

I have come to a few conclusions that will spur on to more conclusions, as conclusions always do.

I've been studying the topic of pain lately.  It's biology, how it interplay's with pleasure and how God interacts with it.  I've concluded that pain is necessary for pleasure, that we can't avoid pain and that I spend most of my time trying to avoid it or fearing I won't be able to.  I'm still 0.1% into this study, but so far I really do believe that pain has to be reality in order for pleasure to be reality.  I can't live in either extreme.  I actually am forced to live with both.  A dichotomy I'm not thankful for yet, but know is true.  

After all:

"What is it, therefore, that goes on within the would, since it takes greater delight in things that it loves are found are found or restored to it than if it had always possessed them?"  (Augustine's Confessions)