Either/Or comes and goes, sometimes simultaneously, differing only in place. “It’s this.” “No, it’s that.” “It’s black.” “No, it’s white.” “It’s acceptable.” “No, it’s not.” The peaceful end to the argument? “Let’s just say we agree to disagree.”
Then there’s the grey, the sliding scale of detail, the contradictions great and small, and the spectrum of truths that embed their falsehoods. Either/Or and grey: Apparently, we all have both the ability to and the penchant for different perspectives. We’re all utilitarian in this: Perspectives of convenience; convenience of perspectives.
In the middle of the nineteenth century Théophile Gautier wrote, “Je suis un homme pour qui le monde extérieur existe” (“I am a man for whom the outside world exists”). Selfish? Self-centered? Not quite. In varying degrees at various times he supported through journalism and his poetry and drama, two mistresses and three children. Somehow, grey slipped between Either and Or. Either/grey/Or.
Théophile had a nickname: le bon Théo. Somebody obviously thought highly of him. In fact a number of famous French writers held him in esteem, and some became his intellectual and artistic offspring. The origin of le bon Théo’s first name is Greek: Θεοφιλος, a name meaning something like “friend of God,” and “love of God.”
In most religions the world exists as a creation, and the creation exists for the Creator or creators. The statement by le bon Théo about his relationship to the “outside world” (“le monde extérieur”) reveals a perspective that some might find antithetical to their own perspectives. How do you see it?
Are you either one for whom the outside world exists or one who exists for the outside world? Yet another question: Is your perspective somehow neither one nor the other, but rather the grey perspective slipped between the two? In what sense are you a “friend of God”?
Then there’s the grey, the sliding scale of detail, the contradictions great and small, and the spectrum of truths that embed their falsehoods. Either/Or and grey: Apparently, we all have both the ability to and the penchant for different perspectives. We’re all utilitarian in this: Perspectives of convenience; convenience of perspectives.
In the middle of the nineteenth century Théophile Gautier wrote, “Je suis un homme pour qui le monde extérieur existe” (“I am a man for whom the outside world exists”). Selfish? Self-centered? Not quite. In varying degrees at various times he supported through journalism and his poetry and drama, two mistresses and three children. Somehow, grey slipped between Either and Or. Either/grey/Or.
Théophile had a nickname: le bon Théo. Somebody obviously thought highly of him. In fact a number of famous French writers held him in esteem, and some became his intellectual and artistic offspring. The origin of le bon Théo’s first name is Greek: Θεοφιλος, a name meaning something like “friend of God,” and “love of God.”
In most religions the world exists as a creation, and the creation exists for the Creator or creators. The statement by le bon Théo about his relationship to the “outside world” (“le monde extérieur”) reveals a perspective that some might find antithetical to their own perspectives. How do you see it?
Are you either one for whom the outside world exists or one who exists for the outside world? Yet another question: Is your perspective somehow neither one nor the other, but rather the grey perspective slipped between the two? In what sense are you a “friend of God”?
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