Concept: The Dialectic 🦋

"The road up and the road down is one and the same." —  Heraclitus

We use the “dialectic” in Relatefulness as a construct to help us understand growth and surrender so that we can facilitate both with more compassion and non-attachment. 

The basic idea is that:

• For any given way of being (a thesis), eg: Caterpillar
• There’s an opposite (antithesis), eg: Chrysalis, that invites further evolution into
• A position that holds both (synthesis), eg: Butterfly, in a higher order of complexity (and often simplicity).

It helps us understand seemingly contradicting ideas co-existing. It helps us appreciate that both thesis and antithesis can be healthy and necessary. We need booster rockets to get out of the atmosphere (thesis), we eventually drop those boosters (antithesis), but we don’t take them away from other spaceships just because we needed to drop them to continue our journey. Peeling the cocoon open won’t hasten a butterfly’s emergence.

Personally: Too often we think it’s either the way I used to do things, or the new, rather than a dialectical synthesis. Relationally: Too often we trip into my view or yours, rather than looking for the synthesis. Society wide, historically, how do we synthesize? How do we honor appropriate unfolding? How do we discern and boundary what isn't?

With love, Jordan