Opposites and Binaries

After doing literature for so long, i should have very early on worked out the significance of binaries. Binaries are two opposing ideas that are united via their differences, in that one annuls the other but paradoxically requires the other to define itself.

Pursuing any binaristic relationship to the fullest one would eventually find out (to horror or to glee) that the two are the same, and the twain can and will meet. Two sides that do not face each other are but different sides of the same coin. This is what I have realised.

Opposites do attract. After a series of unfortunate events, i have sorted out this internal mess within myself much more than i thought myself to have done. How so? i agree to some views that i've become sadder (more Tony you think?), more cynical (again, short Tony-esque quips) and more calculative (YES i suck at maths, but emotional calculation ya?) So in the other news, i've met Melissa, ex-miss2eyesandasunflower and now the indomitable girl who wants a spiderman mask, "calls" aliens to kidnap her if i am not awake when she does, AND insists that there are crocodiles in Punggol Park. Sounds like a really bad coffee-cranberry ice-blend. But opposites yea? so we attract.

But the sorting out process through the years have led me to conclude that there are definitely two "pairs" of every character trait within a person. Prof Susan Ang will be glad (raises two fists and do a wringing action while saying "binaristic relationship" at staccato speed). Ok here goes the psycho-analytst in me: the dominant trait within a person is not dominant as in stronger but rather more apparent in lieu of the person's surroundings. The trick to why opposites attract lies more on complementarity than anything else. Like a poet when struck with hard times will discard emotionizing and take up farming, for example. But assumes he meets his opposite, the strong-willed peasant girl deploying female wiles to get hitched to anyone at all, somehow falls in love, then things will start to change. The poet will then slowly realise the peasant girl is more adept at growing things and he will start to show more of his poetic side and make peasant girl feel more like a beautiful Sapphic muse instead of a sow-feeder. And in the end both benefit from a settling of differences which makes them attracted to each other in the first place: the poet having learnt farming can and will help peasant girl in times of needs, and the peasant girl will become Sappho sometimes to aid in poet's writing. Thus then a relationship becomes really meaningful amid such an interplay and melding of qualities, traits, and strengths.

Opposites thus attract at first, and gradually binaries collapse into a comfortable mish-mash of understanding, in the best case scenarios. But inherent problems sometimes pop up. In order to make opposites in the first place, two persons within a relationship should have pretty independent egos that can evaluate and judge the traits of the other. However in the commitment phase after getting together, the couple ideally should let go of such independent boundaries and meld their egos. Some people who insist upon acting like when they are single often run into serious problems when things unfold. Insecurity perhaps, or more likely selfishness, will result in one listing out points of incompatibility with the other, bad habits and yadda yadda, in a bid to satisfy that ego and that sense of being. These faults may well be true, sometimes imaginary, but it just takes one reason to end it all. Egos need to meld before a relationship proceeds to a higher level.

So I think maybe in many cases memory serves as both a salve and a bridge for egos to rub against each other, rupture and then mix. Meeting someone and being with someone means a common sharing of personal memories up till the present, this is another phase of a relationship in it's initial stages. And the more one is with someone else the more one uncovers the partner's memories. And if two strands of history are similar, sharing is then easier, isn't it?

So to cut the already long crap, i was profoundly touched by a scene i saw one night after sending M home: an old couple in their 70s is making their way home. The guy is pushing his wife on a wheelchair and slowly hobbling his way up a slope. The two of them are chattering away. M quibbed later on that halfway down the road they will switch places. And maybe it's very possible for them to switch places. Albeit in a romantic mode, i assume that perhaps the couple has been together for so long, sharing memories, melding egos and creating a common shared set of experiences. Realistically i realised too that they probably went through freaking big shit through decades of being together. Therefore staying power--the desire to work it out and sustain a relationship-- is the final block to fit everything together.

Well i've started believing in aliens, and think of crocs every time a big ripple appears on Punggol Park's pond. But i am still myself, just at the same time part of someone else too!

Opposites-melding-common memories-bonding. Get it not?

hahaha oh ya and you make a great bbq under-study!