The Animate and the Inanimate

Surfrrosa
Dec 19, 2023
2 min read

Updated: Dec 21, 2023

I am a student of ideas.

"Everything can happen. Everything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On a flimsy framework of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns."

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

I watched this movie the other day, and it is one of the best movies I've ever seen. There was a line in it that really struck me.

"Everything is alive. And everything is God, or God's intention. Not only the good things, but the cruelest and worst. What do you think?"

I was just discussing this dichotomy with someone the night before I saw the movie. I was talking about societal views on light versus dark, good versus evil, God versus the devil, etc. People often want to claim one and not the other, but one can't exist without the other. If one believes in 'God,' defined as totality, then one must claim all parts of it and its creations. Therefore, darkness is claimed by the light and evil must be claimed by good, positive by negative and so on. These are all judgements that are made which inherently create division. I would argue that the journey to know the self requires judgement. The journey to know the self requires contrast. To know what one is, is to know what one is not. Once the process of self is realised, it is no longer relevant, and polarity can be absolved. It can be let go through integration.

Judgement creates contrast which creates the context of which knowing is possible. Could we know light without dark? Is it not the dark that creates the space for light to inhabit? And is it not true that darkness is only darkness because the light is not shining over it? By light and dark, I also reference conscious and unconscious- our states of awareness. Consciousness is an infinite spiral, an endless process of discovery and examination. Darkness must exist to usher in light, and negative space sets the stage for the subject. We can imagine all of existence, or better yet, our own lives as wavelengths. They ebb and flow with intention and fulfillment. And we spend most of our lives trying to bring in some type of coherence or make peace with the propagation.

I don't like to use the word 'God' because of the extraordinary subjectivity and connotation. However, I am using the word here exactly for that reason. It is often those who build their lives around an idea of God who create the most judgement and separation. We ascribe a word to totality and start choosing aspects of it to displace from creation when we find they don't suit our needs. So, how can God exist in a state of separation? It can't. How can a whole self exist in a state of disunion? It can't. All parts must be claimed by each, and one can't be claimed without the other. In claiming the whole self, we become realised.