Grappling With Grey Matters

It seems the older I get, the more grey I see…and no, I’m not talking about my hair. In the past I’ve tended to embrace a style of thinking that saw certain things in black and white. I am changing and moving past that but it feels like my progress has been at a snail’s pace.

According to experts in brain function there’s a good explanation for that. Once someone has embraced an absolutist way of viewing things, there are physiological changes in the brain that can make it difficult (but not impossible) to break free from it. The brain waves can actually get stuck in a certain frequency, which means we can literally get stuck in our opinions or ideologies.

This might explain the incredible polarization in politics where people seem to grab on to a position and not budge from it. Fundamentalist religion is another example that is often given when it comes to rigid thinking but what I’m talking about is not something that’s strictly reserved for religion and politics. There’s a potential inner-fundamentalist in everyone, encompassing many different areas. When someone claims that their way is the only right way to view life, they are thinking in terms of absolutes and are often not open to modification. Some atheists and scientists I’ve met or read about seem to be the most unyielding in their opinions. Also, I was once amused to hear a yoga teacher say that he’s never met more judgmental people than in his yoga classes. You would think that those who strive for physical flexibility would naturally be flexible in their attitudes but apparently that’s not always the case.

There is this proclivity in people to embrace an idea with strong emotional conviction and rule out the possibility of alternative choices. There are reasons why this has potential for being problematic. My favorite example of this is Galileo, who today is called the “Father of Modern Science.” In the 1600’s he understood that the earth was not the center of the universe. The church and the scientific community at the time believed that it was. Because of his belief that the sun was at the center of the universe he was tried by the Roman inquisition and sentenced to house arrest. Today this seems ridiculous, especially since we know he was right. But in his day he was controversial because his ideas did not conform to the established beliefs of his time, which ruled out that his theory was even possible.

Another well-known example is when the nineteenth-century doctor by the name of Semmelweis figured out that women who gave birth in hospitals rather than at home had a much higher mortality rate because the doctors were not washing their hands in between patients. Today the idea of doctors washing their hands between patients seems like a no-brainer. But, Dr. Semmelweis was scoffed at and threatened with professional disgrace for thinking outside of the medical community’s acceptable box. There were theories that were embraced as orthodox and Dr. Semmelweis’s did not fit.

In the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, I worked for doctors who refused to acknowledge what today are commonly known illnesses - the Epstein-Barr Virus and Fibromyalgia. Today these conditions are recognized by the CDC, the Mayo Clinic, and the general medical community. As much as I liked the doctors I worked for, I was perplexed by their refusal to be open-minded and their disdain for others who were.

The possibilities in life are endless so we may want to question our unbending convictions and consider expanding our consciousness by remaining open to alternative possibilities. I love black and white photography, but I find it interesting that even though it’s called that, it’s not really just black and white. There are many shades of grey that add to the dimension and beauty of those photographs. I have come to believe that it’s beneficial to view life the same way by acknowledging the grey matters.

However, having said all of that and at the risk of contradicting myself, if I want to consider all of the possibilities in life and embrace a paradigm of true openness I have to allow others to see things in black and white if that’s what they choose to do and consider the possibility that they are on track. If I proclaim that everything is grey and there are no absolutes, I am thinking in terms of absolutes myself. Beyond that I want to see the value in the black and white thinkers and not merely tolerate them. I don’t want to insist that I am right because I see the grey, and they are wrong because they see black and white.

I love diversity…or at least I want to love diversity. Grey photographs would be bland without the contrast of black and white. Black and white photographs would lack dimension without the shades of grey. Similarly, the world is rich with the beauty of all types of thinking. Maybe it’s all good…at least I’m open to that possibility.