Sensitized by polarities

“People have two needs: authenticity and attachment. When authenticity threatens attachment, attachment trumps authenticity.”

Gabor Maté

After a prolonged period of frequent, intensive dancing with friends, my heart longs for silence, a meditative moment, aloneness. There is a deepness in the aloneness, a sensitivity, which cannot be find in the dancing. Just like there is an ecstatic quality in the dancing and talking with friends that can’t be experienced in time spent alone.

Now, I have made a certain mistake quite often in my life. This mistake was based on the conviction that one extreme – either dancing my socks off or ‘nun-actively’ retreating into an inner world – were the way to go for me. Convictions based on the overstressed need for safety, either by eagerly wanting to be part of a crowd or by wanting to dim the intensities of embodied living through a rigid routine and a lack of confronting stimuli.

But that is not freedom, and it certainly does not feel like love.

Years of practicing life , it turns out multiple needs are all valid and ideally their fulfillment is a tango along the polarities they represent. The challenge lies in listening to the sensitivity telling me what need is dominant at any time. An inner feeling is my guide here. If one extreme becomes too dominant, I lose sensitivity. Too much talking becomes superficial and too much silencing becomes tasteless.

In my Dutch book ‘Intens mens’ you can find a reflection entitled ‘Ik, een vereniging’. It is one of my favorite reflections, I love to recite this piece because it reminds me of all polarities inherent to the experience of life. The text brings a smile to my face, it’s a funny reminder of being nobody and everything at the same time, an artistic dip into life’s dynamics.