Coming up to this election in America, we are seeing two opposing sides that have become more and more polarized.
And you may think to yourself, why does this dichotomy even exist? How can humans hold two extremely different views? If they are this different, how will the human species continue to exist?
Why are humans so easy to get into a position of being divided and conquered?
Why are there so many flavors of ice cream in the stores?
The answer is, CONTRAST.
Free Will & Contrast
In order to use free will, we must have contrast so that we can choose what we like.
Do you prefer chocolate or vanilla?
Further, do you like one so much that you will always exclude the other one.
(think about contrasting things like war-peace or good-evil)
So, contrast exists so that you can explore all the aspects of the choice.
More importantly, if you do not know, intimately, its opposite, you will not cherish it as much.
If you want unconditional love and togetherness, you will need to experience conditional love and separateness. And you will experience many variations of these things. Often, so much, and so deep, that you will despair and think that unconditional love is a myth. That togetherness / acceptance is a fleeting thing. Like marriage today, broken because "she was not happy" (or entertained)
In order for their to be free will, their must be contrast, else the free will is wasted. And because there is contrast, there will be contention.
Contrast hurts
The Buddhists say that the "world is suffering". In that, we live in a world of contrast, and so, there will always be some amount of pain, because of the difference between where you are and where you would like to be.
This pain you experience is constant, and continuous, and so it is called suffering.
Many Buddhists work at not having and desires. And when you have no desires, there is no suffering. However, this is against the will of the planet. It, we, are all here to explore the contrast. Fortunately, this world favors good slightly more, so when you are at a point of balance, the things you desire come towards you.
Another path is to embrace the pain of creation. Understand that you are creating / manifesting your future. You may feel this is a little nihilistic, but you can make it work out quite well. Like an adrenalin junky searching out new thrilling experiences.
You can either look at contrast as a painful experience to endure, or you can see it as an exciting journey.
Your viewpoint will help you during the trials you will face as you change from your old you, to a new you. Another thing that helps is understanding the structure of contrast.
The structure of contrast
The problem is that the real contrasts we are working with, are not easy, or tasty, like decisions between chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Instead, they are like the aforementioned "belonging", where you will have some tastes of belonging, but you will have a lot of not-belonging. You will be kicked out of groups. Shunned. Discarded. You will experience all different types of not-belonging.
You will probably start life with a mother who doesn't care about you. A mother who says, "I should have never had you", "you destroyed my life" (what a horrifying thing to say to a child. That mother would prefer them worse than dead, to actually not exist.) This is why we had the "me" generation. Because so many people wanted to work on "belonging". And this is also why we are at the beginning of the great migration. Where people are going to move to be together with "their family" You might more easily think of it as getting with your tribe, but they will be called "families" in the future.
So, you see, in this way, contrast is being experienced and the desires of belonging are being manifested.
You may also realize that this is a multi-generational / multi-lifetime plan / structure
Most people cannot go through the harshest abandonments, and then rebuild themselves, and accept a position in a supportive community. Their body is programmed, their minds are tuned, to see signs of abandonment everywhere. And so, these people die, and then are born to a loving mother, a caring environment. But, this time, they will know that it is what they want, and they will cherish the belonging.
Good vs Evil
The biggest thing i can point to in the contrast-zeitgeist is good vs evil.
We have tried all kinds of good vs evil. Four advanced civilizations were reset in the experiences of good and evil. But, this time, we made it over the hurdle. We have chosen good.
What i would like you to ponder is how many lifetimes of experience this took. These choices are not simple and one dimensional. And we all tried so many variations. So much war, so much fighting. So many times of experiencing peace, only to have it ripped up again. We have truly tried every avenue we could think of.
I must also bring up that this decision is permanent. We have lost a little bit of our free will.
Good has won, and our planet is changing to support good, and nullify evil. Good people will live longer. Bad people will have their lives shortened in a hundred ways. As we go into the future, it will be harder and harder for evil to exist. (of course, our challenge right now is to expose the evil and clean it all up)
I know it is painful when you are in it, but contrast is really the spice of life. It is what makes this planet go.
If you are poor, homeless, abandoned, this really sucks. I comprehend that. The way out is not to push away contrast, but to understand it for what it is. To experience it fully, and then move to what you really want. Praying or voting for communist social policies, does not fix this. Everyone gets the same crappy flat. When, what you want is for everyone to have a nice place to live. And so, you have to focus on what you want, and go towards it. We don't want identical crappy flats. We also really do not want everyone in McMansions. (waste of space, just more to clean) But, we actually want belonging in a similar thinking community. And, those solutions are completely different then our current housing choices.
Understand contrast, and take a great step in understanding your life. Therein is also the tools for how to change it.