Good or evil.
Light or darkness.
Right or wrong.
This or that.
To live in a world of duality is to exist in a convenient world, one in which inconvenient ideas may be dispatched in favor of simplicity, comfort.
Where things can be either this way or that way, and no other way, they are easy to categorize.
This person is a criminal.
That person is illegal.
This one is lazy.
That one can’t get their act together.
They are not like me.
Thank god they are. not like me.
And alas, in this world I may have clarity, I may have some measure of control even…
But most satisfyingly, this world makes no demands on me.
It demands not that I catch the tears of the weeping child, daughter of migrants.
It demands not that I touch the shackled hand of the guilty, son of addicts.
It demands not that I consider my own privilege, my own relative wealth, my own selfishness, or my own power.
In the world of this or that, I may be this and disregard what becomes of that.
But in a world of color, a golden world, I must consider:
If the migrant was me, working fingers to the bone to feed my children and yours…
How would I like to be treated?
If it was me behind those bars of steel, having undertaken actions I cannot now annul…
Who would I like as my advocate?
If it was me in pain, or hungry, or naked, or unwelcomed…
What kind of person would I wish to cross my path?
Would I want that person to use their power to harm me or to heal me?
And if it were you, would you want to stumble upon a person from the world of this or that, a world which revel in cruelty and where gold’s only purpose is to adorn the mantles grotesquely greedy, powerful, and vain?
Or would you hope to be visited by a person with a golden soul, a person who saw the humanity in your eyes when no others do, a person who sees your pain and your goodness and your frailty and loves you all the same? A person who has seen you at your worst and is left undeterred, undaunted?
If it were you, in which world would you wish to exist?
In a world of this or that, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
- Brandon