Duality

"Duality; an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something. Dualism has been a concept since the earliest of human civilizations. The most common and ancient duality is the idea of good and evil, of light and of dark. Now there are other dualities that exist that do not involve the ideas of good and evil, for example the duality of unrequited love. This is one of the most painful dualities one can experience and serves as a great example of the concept. To truly love someone means to want for them whatever it is that will bring them true happiness. Now, let us speak from the perspective of a man who is in love with a woman that does not love him."

"For the man in our example, when his love is unrequited, a drift opens in his soul. The man must now contend with the two aspects of his love. One aspect is that he wants to be with the woman he loves, and to be the one to care for her. The man believes, because of his love, that this will bring him happiness. The second, more painful, aspect is that he knows that he must let go of the woman because he knows that her happiness lies elsewhere. The man must sacrifice his own happiness for the happiness of the woman he loves, in turn gaining a different sort of happiness. Thus, is the beauty and the torture of the duality. Now that we have seen this example, I would like to ponder the most ancient duality known to man. Let us now speak on the duality of good and evil."

"The idea of good and evil, like I said, can be seen as far back as the oldest human civilizations. The Mesopotamians even had an idea of what was right, or good, and what was wrong, or evil. It was seen as good to worship the gods, to do as they commanded and to practice in their rituals. It was seen as evil to rebel against the will of the gods and to defy their requests. Many cultures in history follow this idealism, that there is bad and there is good. However, there are ancient philosophies that contest this, the primary being the ancient Chinese practice of Taiji (known to most as T'ai Chi) and the concept of Yin and Yang. See, ancient Chinese philosophers rejected the idea that you must always work towards goodness, and evil must always be rooted out and destroyed. Rather, there must be and will always be a balance; good and evil are interconnected and interdependent on each other in their very nature. Both exist within all of us, whether we want to accept that or not. Some of us refuse to accept. We want to be good people; we don't want to hurt others. We actively try to suppress the darkness in ourselves and promote the light; sometimes we are successful."

"And sometimes the darkness slips out."

___________________________________________________

On Tuesday March 13th, 1956 the evening transit pulled into the station at 7th Avenue, just west of Prospect Park in the neighborhood of Windsor Terrace in Brooklyn. The subway cars slowed to a stop and people flooded out of the sliding doors and made their way through the crowds and up out of the subway station. One droplet in this ocean was Jackson Holloway, a 37-year-old detective who worked in the Crime Scene Unit of the New York Police Department at 240 Centre Street in Manhattan. As Mr. Holloway ascended the stairs, he pulled out his pocket watch to see that the time was 6:17 pm; the transit was two minutes late that day. Regardless that it was unusual for the transit to arrive any later than 6:15 pm, he paid it no mind and continued on his walk home at his normal pace, flipping his collar up to guard his neck from the chilly bite of the evening air and holding his hat to his head to keep the breeze from carrying it away.

Mr. Holloway was described by many as a man who was gentle and kind, but who also had a strong thirst for justice. He believed that the law was absolute and that no man was above it; this in fact is what drove him to become a detective. And while during the day he was out upholding the law and bringing justice to the people of New York, in the evening he was just a simple man who wanted to relax and spend time with his wife and son. And that is exactly what occupied his mind as he walked his normal route down past Greenwood Cemetery, where he always said hello to his late mother and father as he passed, to his apartment in Kensington.