It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Charles Dickens was onto something with these iconic opening words in A Tale of Two Cities. Naturally, he was providing a social commentary on the political and cultural climate of France and Britain leading up to the French Revolution. Inasmuch as these tumultuous historical events demand the stark contrast of the best and worst of times, every moment in time deserves the same critique. I have a hunch that every book ever written could start this way...and every life ever lived.

Our lives are played out in the world of the relative. There are very few, if any, absolutes (save death and taxes) that govern our existence. Beyond our biological drives and desires, we pretty much make everything else up as we go along. And all this fiction we are creating and all the biological factors we have no control over can only be known in the relative world.

We can only know health and vitality if we also know illness and disease. We can only appreciate clarity of mind if we also struggled through confusion. We can only experience love and joy if we also allow fear and sadness. We can only glimpse our perfection if we admit imperfection. There is not one example I can think of that does not fit into this equation. As Neale Donald Walsch says in Conversations With God, "In the absence of that which is not, that which is, is not."

Contrast, then, is a vital part of existence. Without differing experience, without juxtaposition, choice would be eliminated from our lives: Possibility vanishes and our existence flat-lines. Think about it - If we only knew happiness and joy (and its' derivative feelings and emotions), grief and sadness (and it's derivative feelings and emotions) would be vanquished from the realm of possible emotional experiences. While this may sound nice or ideal to some, especially those whose share of sadness and grief have been disproportionate to their joy and happiness, it could not be a sustainable model for living.

Most would be hard pressed to think of an emotion or experience that they would want to have all the time. In Arab countries there is a saying, "All sunshine makes deserts." Any emotion or experience we have becomes meaningless over time without its contrast. Even if it were possible to experience ongoing and sustainable joy and happiness, we would, out of abject necessity, delineate our experiences to various levels or categories of happiness in order to assign some meaning or to provide a critical reference point. When it comes to life experience, it's all or nothing, and everything we think, feel and experience is between the two.

So, remember in those moments of ecstatic bliss and heartbreaking grief that both experiences are the best of times and the worst of times. They only and always co-exist, each without any discernible beginning or end. They simply are. Their presence the tangible and intangible evidence that makes the contrast of life and living possible.

The Eternal Contrast: The Yin & Yang of Life