The Third
Duality is a concept that overlooks the unity of the third as well as the simultaneous uniqueness and universality of humanity as one.
Our civilization clings to a yes or no, on or off, black or white, male or female, binary mentality that lacks the context in which those important dualities exist. Yin plus yang equals one whole; that is three elements not two. We must wrest ourselves away from the dualistic view of a world that clings to love vs hate, courage vs cowardliness, light vs dark, etc. There is always a threefold alternative to the mechanistic twofold equation. We live as the balance beam between the polarities when we embrace infatuation-love-hate, foolhardiness-courage-cowardliness, or light-colour-dark, etc. We are not one or other of the polarities, we discover ourselves as the medium.
Joined in uniqueness
The issue of diversity is a topic of great concern at the moment. But so is the issue of universality. Every human being shares something with the other no matter what their gender, race or cultural differences are, and yet at the same time, each embodies a special uniqueness. How is it that we cannot embrace uniqueness as a complement and integral aspect of one whole?
As a teaching-artist it is all too wonderfully familiar to me that upon giving a singular instruction to a group of children or adults for a painting or drawing lesson, each individual produces their own unique interpretation based on the same instruction. No two artworks are the same. Each one is a special and independent creation even though it came directly from the same prompt. Everyone seems to be able to draw from an individual source and manifest something very different from what all the others produce.
What is this individual source we draw from if not a similar creative wellspring? Don’t we all have this innate capacity, this inner spiritual resource to tap into? And don’t we all share this genuine talent, even though uniquely expressed, with everyone else? Isn’t this after all, in part, what makes us human?
Creativity as a universal source
The universal human being is an ideal, a spiritual reality. The unique, diverse individual human being is a physical reality and the two can be the complete picture of a person. Diversity without the universal, the physical without the spiritual leads to a materialistic endgame, a ‘war of all against all.’
Let us not forget that we are all artists when engaged in the creative process. We share this process of being human with all other human beings. We are part of a larger art studio than we might recognize.