Toying with the theory that the more darkness we experience in life, the greater our capacity for joy.

Most of the remarkable happy people I know in life have had very dark things happen to them at some point, and I can’t think of a person who’s never had anything bad happen to them who appears to understand and enjoy life on a more than superficial level. Not saying that these are hard and fast laws, but rather general empirical observations on my part.

And so I’m trying to frame this in a physics way – is it related to the law that every action has an equal but opposite reaction, related to a universe mathematically based in polarities? Is it the nature of duality that in carving space for pain we also carve space for joy?

It’s true that when we numb ourselves to pain we also numb ourselves to pleasure, as occurs in the trauma reaction of desensitization or depersonalization. This is a scientifically documented PTSD symptom and not just spiritual conjecture. But is its corollary true as well, that if we set the intention to resensitize then the extremity of the pain we’ve undergone will be met on the other side of the spectrum with an equal measure of joy?

The degree to which I’ve been called to contemplate polarities lately – the idea that all opposites are the same, the idea that all things carry their opposites within them just by being NOT them – is rather overwhelming. What makes a thing opposite? What’s so special about the number 2? Does anything exist that comes in a set of 3, that doesn’t each have its dual counterpart? Do opposites ever have commonalities? If a set of opposites can have commonalities, then are they really opposites at all? Or must they be broken further down?

If a human being could have an opposite, it would also be another human being. It would have to be – it wouldn’t truly be an opposite if it were a different creature. The opposite of light is dark, but they’re both frequencies. The opposite of white is black, but they’re both colors.

There are some ideas here that are in the larval stages (on my part at least), but I have a feeling I’m pulling together some important downloads about trauma and relationships – specifically in the way our attachment styles and trauma bonds tend to complement each other. I’m not sure about the shape it’s taking yet but I’m excited to bring it together.