Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Black, White or 67 shades of Grey?


Update: Anshul claims this is his theory and I stole it. He demands credit and since I love him so much, it's his for the asking... :)


Last Friday, on the way back home I was tuned to a radio station as usual. The topic being discussed was – are there any blacks or whites in life? Or are there only shades of grey? (the number 67 comes from the show’s host by the way) The moment I heard it, I was like Black and White in life? Is that even possible? I don’t think so. Allow me to explain –

 

Black is the absence of light. Light now can be energy, emotions, feelings… all manner of things possible. This would make white a combination of everything. All feelings, all emotions… maybe I take the theory a bit too far. If you consider light symbolic of all things positive, then the whites become a culmination of happiness, elation, ecstasy, joy… sheer bliss, if I may say so. And black is the exact opposite – hate, anger, sadness, misery. Now with this distinction clear, try to fit the events and things in your life into these 2 brackets. Can you? If you say yes, look at the thing again. Was there not a single thing to tarnish your happiness in all the whites? I bet there was. All good things come at a price and bearing the price adds black to your perfect white resulting in… you guessed it – GREY! Look closely enough at the blacks, did nothing good come out of it? Not even the slightest bit? No, then change eyes! Look at it from someone else’s perspective and you’d detect a white… no matter how tiny that speck is, it renders the black grey. A mixture of black and white – grey! The shades may vary some resembling white and some black and yet there’d be scores of others that are close to neither. They tread on the fine line between good and evil as we know it and could fall on either side depending on the person’s vision.

 

Speaking of myself, I learnt early on that there are no blacks and whites. But putting that into practice in life – well, that was another story altogether! Ironically, when I finally did, I emerged a new person. Whenever I look back, I attribute my metamorphosis to this. An acceptance of the greys in life as they were and of my own inability to change them. You wouldn’t imagine the kind of change that came over me then. I became a lot easier to get along when I let go of the hang ups and made a lot more friends. When you accept that you are not perfect, you are at peace with yourself. When you accept that no body is perfect, you are peace with the world. I found my peace when I accepted the greys in people around me and that made it much easier to breathe. This new life was much better than teenage angst which we all go thru. I remember one of my teachers saying that as teenager’s we are caterpillars wrapped in the cocoon. We go thru a period of struggle with ourselves, trying to understand who we are, what we want, what we expect from ourselves. Once we are thru, we emerge as beautiful butterflies… quite a poetic way to put it I said, but doesn’t happen in real life… how wrong I was!

12 comments:

Ricky said...

White to me is a symbol of purity and its almost impossible for us mere mortals to be pure in every aspect of our lives. We all make mistakes, some knowingly some unknowingly, but as long as we strive to learn from them, we may end up on the lighter side of Grey. In that sense, I believe that shades of greyness of our lives changes with time too.

Karthik said...

Well, Wiki says that the human eye can visualize 256 shades of gray!! :)

I guess it depends on one's perspective to classify white/black as good/bad & the balance between the two to define how life is.

Anonymous said...

Always evolve this shade, try and made it brighter by the day...lessen the blacks and increase the whites in life..it will happen.
White is the reflection, Black is the shadow...have the conviction to get out from the shadows and see your reflection. It always tells you who you are.

Anonymous said...

Nowadays..........
Black is black
but white is gray!
~Aindrila

anks said...

@ Ricky,
True... white is the symbol of purity, and nothing on earth is absolutely pure.... other than nature perhaps... does that mean we humans bring impurity & hence, grey into this world?

@ Karthik,
Interesting... I didn't look up the number of shades we could identify! I agree with what you said about perspective defining balance.... maybe that is what gives rise to conflicts in this world.... one man's white is another man's grey and yet another man's grey could be some one ekse's black...

@ Anon,
Interesting again... you really believe that we control all the blacks and whites in life? I am not so sure... by the way, do I know you?

@ Aindrila,
Nowadays..........
Black is black
but white is gray!
Ah, what can I say?

Karthik said...

True. But when a mass of people have the same outlook about the varying shades of black & white and their understanding of society as such, you end up having factions. And that's when society has problems at large if the consensus is harmful to the world.

Juneli said...

hmmmm in that way yes, life has if full of grays.

You know what I recall here a scene of the film Chini Kum in which the litle girl said to AB..... that it's happy-sad then why you look sad-sad :-)

Juneli said...

Happy Birthday dear.

May this birthday makes your day the more special and beautiful

Wishing you another year of good health, happiness and prosperity.


Many Many Happy Returns of the Day. :-)

Ricky said...

Aren't we humans part of nature too? Its the survival of the fittest in nature and so even though Dinosaurs were part of nature, they were eliminated. If we humans go on polluting the world and fighting amongst each other, our future may not be that bright (or white??) either.

Navjot Kashyap said...

So, you have started blogging again..albeit sporadically..nice....
arre Rishi & Sasha last July se airport pe hi baithe hain...unka bhi to kuch karo..:-)

anks said...

@ Karthik,

True, but a large portion of the factions are not original thinkers. In fact, almost none are... they are the one's whose opinions have been conditioned and then coloured.... the original thinkers are very few... and sometimes the destiny of our world depends upon these few, their ability to influence the others... Hitler is one such example

@J,
Yeah, that scene was cute and the girl was overly mature for her age... but then cinema over simplifies things at times... don't you think?

And thanks for the birthday wishes dear... kudos to your memory... :)

@ Ricky,
Humans were supposed to be a part of nature. But that was before they overtook the planet... we have a delusionary sense of our own power and nature has a way of reminding us - the earthquakes, the tsunamis, the draughts and floods.... and we refuse to learn...

anks said...

@ Navy,

Heyyy... long time.... how have you been....?

Rishi and Sasha airport par hi rahenge, but looks like you have not visited them for a while now.... :)