“I cut off your peace!”
For or against. Good or bad. Light or dark. Spiritual or atheist. Green or capitalist. We are conditioned to choose one side or the other. In deciding what you want to be known for, to feel like you belong: to a clan, to a family, to a party, to an idea. In short, by choosing one or the other, we have the illusion of being a human being, through the eyes of others. To exist among other social beings. From the smallest to the largest on this Earth, we are all creatures of links. Some weave their ties underground, with roots guided by this admirable facilitator called the “mycelium”, others by praying in the same church or dancing to the same song. In any case, we are sometimes eager to fit in a box, to join a group, to mark ourselves. In contrast, the cords we weave are often weak; our best friend will choose to be vaccinated or not, and we will reject him en bloc. Our aunt would choose to vote for UDC or Solidarités, and we would decide not to invite her to family dinners. Our sister decides to board the plane again for a fun trip or, conversely, decides to leave a van without a penny and we are brutally thrown out of our place of intimacy. It’s almost thought to hide everything we’ve experienced with these people in the past and everything we love about them. For a black or white idea, we are willing to release it without permission. Dismiss them in part, and with contempt, frustration and resentment as the background.
So far, nothing is new. Civilizations are always divided for yes or no. So, we are at war with each other and we will continue to do so, always for a yes or no. Truth be told, our world today is more like Eric Judor’s hilarious comedy “Problemos” (2017), where even the most beautiful of egalitarian communities always go to war, with ego games that don’t avoidable (the power of self -deprecation offered by this film is truly life -saving) rather than the one coveted by most (I include of course) and which is offered at the end of “La Belle Verte” (1996) by Coline Serreau .
Behind the label, the man
Until then, this is also how I identify myself in the world: maintaining links with people who are strictly people with the same values as me; others may go their way, unless there is a particular affinity that is not reasonably defined. And then, life gives me this kind of slap in the face that opens up other perspectives. He put in my path this famous close friend who was vaccinated or not, this brother who boarded a plane or left a van, this aunt who voted for UDC or Solidarités. And more than division, I can’t help but love them. Beyond my set ideas, I decided to keep looking at the man behind the label.
“Are you on the right or are you on the left?
Are you redneck or stupid from Paris?
Either you are the one or you are the other
You are a human being or else you will die
Cultivator or patetician
Feminist or the Farm
Whether you are macho or homo
But are you phobic or sexual
Unbelievable or terrorist
Are you a widow or a beard
conspiracy, illuminati
Mythomanist or sold?
Never, or all at once
In all, undecided
Han, have you changed your mind crazy?
But are you Hutu or Tutsi?
Flemish or Walloon?
Hanging arms or long arms?
In the end you are racist
But are you white or brown?
It’s not
Bastard, you are, you used to be, and you remain that ”
My approach to capturing duality has gone through a 360 ° turn. Thanks for life. I have to note that in every family, political party, association, ZAD or squat, duality always results in the creation of conflicting divisions. One no longer agrees with the other’s philosophy and decides to fight him if he refuses to abdicate. We fought to figure out who held a fact of “best strategy”, while in the beginning, we were connected at the same cost. All social struggle is combined, the pattern repeats itself. We will go so far as to spit out the public so and so, to express our own truth, with the handicap of the blind closed by our own inner world, to be identified. To establish self -legitimacy, by almost deliberately hiding the complexity of the world, without responding to any binarity. Basically and in all honesty, I believe the only truth we can prove is to say that there are as many facts as individuals.
Twerking with duality
Have you ever noticed that you can share so many basic values with the so-and-so person that you can’t see him or her painting (and vice versa) and that at the same time, you can suddenly fall in love with a member in the “enemy camp”, inevitably attracted to that person because of the maldito pheromones?
Like this amazing dance between day and night, life and death, our two parts are intertwined and express their legitimacy in existence. It’s not that we have to allow “shadow” to replace “light”, but we just have to accept it in order to better accept the shape of this strange chaotic world of ours, in this dimension, on this planet. . In this sense, we should be able to claim to ourselves that we can be a wise grandmother and a beautiful prostitute at the same time. Both a committed anti-capitalist and an excessive consumer of social networks. A diligent teacher and an irresistible dunce. Yes, and between us, you will probably also identify yourself with one of these dualities!
In this dynamic acceptance on both sides of me, and therefore the world, I will confess to you: I sometimes started dancing reggeaton in a nightclub (after many years of avoidance!). Wow. Putting it in writing probably had the same effect on me as someone admitting to a talking circle, his addiction to such and such a thing. I never thought that dancing lightly again with sexist lyrics would free me from so many shackles. I, who no longer swear by a radically healthy and unshakable line of ethics, would never think that reggeaton would evoke such knowledge (thanks Don Omar!). Today, my tears of gratitude fall when I meet a group of students at a club, scattered into easily marked families: the pretty and handsome kids, the “weirdos”, the sportswomen , the shy, the homosexuals. . By observing this mix of unique people rather than judging them, I shed these tears, with a smile and a touched heart. I can recognize myself in one or the other, and I can also recognize the wound in one and the other, which makes him act so and so. Beyond their looks and their social connection, I could see their pure hearts trembling more than their hands on Nicky Jam. After an hour of partying, the clans finally split up so everyone joined in a long Indian file, started by the famous class leader (yes, there always is, and it’s OK). The space of a title, the families are gone, this long human chain remains, happy and united. Symbolically, that sums it all up. And this image touches me like watching a pig lying in a mud bath, that is.
Like what, to my greatest surprise, I was just watching the carefree twerk on Wisin y Yandel’s “Noche de Sexo” (I think), a holy trip to a nightclub can give me a philosophical education of immeasurable depth.
In short, our relationships deserve that we give them the same dance offered by the moon to the sun and vice versa, in an intertwining of perfectly balanced polarities. In ragga or in a Buddhist mantra, it doesn’t matter. Accepting the differences of others without despising them, working for love and light, yes, while welcoming the duality of ourselves and others without oppressing it, finally waltz with the excesses who have contributed. of impossible harmony in this world of turmoil. As much as possible, look at the person’s heart behind his or her label, to give him or her the possibility to open it even wider, beyond judgments. Thus leaving love in the unconditional sense of the term has the power to heal the depths of wounds, as in one of the most touching stories I have seen: that this man who spoke the “Man”, the powerful documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.