Drunk Thoughts in My Kitchen
The phrase, "two sides of the same coin" has been a constant refrain in my thoughts. I used it during a conversation about spirituality with my boss a few days ago, and since then, I've been seeing both examples and non-examples of this concept in certain relationships.
Applying this concept to people, the idea that certain personality traits, characteristics, and values can be either opposite or complementary has been a question I've been wrestling with for some time now. At which point are two different people similar enough to be complementary instead of simply contradictory? Isn't contradictory by definition complementary, when any individual concept or being is only defined by its contrast? What makes two people complement each other: their choices or their natures? If each and every person is only half of the whole concept (ie: I am creative-minded but not mathematically-inclined, while another person is athletic and never sedentary), does that mean we truly go through lives finding another person to complete us?
As I kept letting my brain digest these difficult questions over the past few days, a personal answer began to coagulate. Others may disagree, but this is what I've worked out for myself.
It's not about finding someone to complete ourselves; it's about finding balance. What makes two people complement each other is both their choices and their natures. Their respective natures have to overlap in some fundamental way and they have to choose the person they want to be. They need to make a choice to become better in some way, to nurture the parts of themselves that are "lacking". I frame this word in scare quotes because a person's specific personality trait is not truly lacking, it is just unbalanced and unfettered by its counterpart. To put it more concretely, I am most definitely a day dreamer-- I always have been idealistic since a young age, and while it feeds and fuels my creative side, I have always sought to feel grounded in some way. Whether consciously or unconsciously chosen, the friends and romantic interests in my life have mostly been people with more realistic (and usually pessimistic, I don't know if that's alarming or not) worldviews. That is the balance. That is the choice, because I know I can't spend my entire life with my head floating among the stars. I want to be more grounded. If I didn't, then no amount of realism would be complementary to my life because it would simply be contradictory to the life I want to live.
To be quite honest, I am extremely happy and glad I rescinded my decision to move to Montreal. It was a step in the wrong direction, yes. It was a mistake I needed to make, yes. My life is kind of in pieces at the moment, yes...but there is a foreign sensation of being settled that I haven't experienced before, like my dreams have a tether now. I am exactly where I need to be. The people in my life are exactly the people I need now, for reasons discovered and unknown. It's a strange thing, because having this balance has made me realize the person I am and the person I wanted to be, and the person I wanted to be and the life I wanted to live was a dream that would have been dangerously close to taking me further and further away from my true self. It was a pretty dream that would have shattered shortly after its realization.
Applying this concept to people, the idea that certain personality traits, characteristics, and values can be either opposite or complementary has been a question I've been wrestling with for some time now. At which point are two different people similar enough to be complementary instead of simply contradictory? Isn't contradictory by definition complementary, when any individual concept or being is only defined by its contrast? What makes two people complement each other: their choices or their natures? If each and every person is only half of the whole concept (ie: I am creative-minded but not mathematically-inclined, while another person is athletic and never sedentary), does that mean we truly go through lives finding another person to complete us?
As I kept letting my brain digest these difficult questions over the past few days, a personal answer began to coagulate. Others may disagree, but this is what I've worked out for myself.
It's not about finding someone to complete ourselves; it's about finding balance. What makes two people complement each other is both their choices and their natures. Their respective natures have to overlap in some fundamental way and they have to choose the person they want to be. They need to make a choice to become better in some way, to nurture the parts of themselves that are "lacking". I frame this word in scare quotes because a person's specific personality trait is not truly lacking, it is just unbalanced and unfettered by its counterpart. To put it more concretely, I am most definitely a day dreamer-- I always have been idealistic since a young age, and while it feeds and fuels my creative side, I have always sought to feel grounded in some way. Whether consciously or unconsciously chosen, the friends and romantic interests in my life have mostly been people with more realistic (and usually pessimistic, I don't know if that's alarming or not) worldviews. That is the balance. That is the choice, because I know I can't spend my entire life with my head floating among the stars. I want to be more grounded. If I didn't, then no amount of realism would be complementary to my life because it would simply be contradictory to the life I want to live.
To be quite honest, I am extremely happy and glad I rescinded my decision to move to Montreal. It was a step in the wrong direction, yes. It was a mistake I needed to make, yes. My life is kind of in pieces at the moment, yes...but there is a foreign sensation of being settled that I haven't experienced before, like my dreams have a tether now. I am exactly where I need to be. The people in my life are exactly the people I need now, for reasons discovered and unknown. It's a strange thing, because having this balance has made me realize the person I am and the person I wanted to be, and the person I wanted to be and the life I wanted to live was a dream that would have been dangerously close to taking me further and further away from my true self. It was a pretty dream that would have shattered shortly after its realization.
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