“And verily sooth I shall embrace my bastard self and henceforth bask in unparralelled happiness”-Book of Maynard, C4:V12

Duality. An instance of opposition or contrast between two aspects of the same thing, a dualism. This particular nugget has been rattling about in my head for a long while but I have been unsure of how to get it into words without sounding like some zen, hipster bell-end but here goes.

I absolutely detest beige.

It’s just a complete non-colour, it blends in to complete nothingness to the degree of being utterly non-descript. It is nether brown nor while, makes no statement of itself and for me has absolutely no positive or negative connotations. It just is. In my head beige is a Clark’s shoe or a Toyota Corolla, functional enough but absolutely no character, no excitement it just blends in and is completely forgettable. (Sorry if you drive a Corolla or have a propensity for sensible shoes.)

I used to be beige.

I used to be determined to blend into the background and not be seen for fear of being really seen. I’ve already said how much I hated meeting people due to fear of that microscopic examination, I feared it so much I would purposely dull myself down. I mean why the hell would I intentionally risk being exposed as the basket case that I was?? What I didn’t really realise was I wasn’t being my authentic self. You see I was actually really good at accepting the superficial praise and plaudits for what I thought were the parts of me that others’ would much prefer to see that when it came to the darker, less palatable parts I was hell bent that these would absolutely remain hidden.

I didn’t realise I was being utterly beige.

And here is where duality comes in.

What didn’t click with me was every single thing in life has a polar opposite if you will. Light and dark, good and evil, summer and winter, you get the gist. The more I tried to suppress the less than positive sides of my character the more they would come to the fore. Whenever I was playing at big boys and trying to be all suburban and respectable I would always be compelled to buck against the imagery and constraints that I had placed on myself. If I was trying to be faithful my eye would absolutely wander; if I was trying to project a settled, content facade then the more I would reach for the big shiny self destruct button.

What I didn’t realise was I was being dismissive of myself, I was denying and ignoring a whole side of my persona because I refused to even acknowledge it existed. Now don’t get me wrong at the time I had good reason to hide that part of me. If I found it stomach-churning of COURSE others would and there’s no way anyone else would understand, is there? Only problem with that is like everything else, the truth always outs itself and through a chain of events my truth began to out itself. People began to find out about my darker side and you know what? No one screamed, no one called me a charlatan nor did they call me a liar, they believed me.

I didn’t feel so beige.

Slowly as I began to open up to those close to me I began to feel confident in talking about my past, about my history and one by one my close circle would validate their better understanding of me, would begin to embrace me more than I had ever realised and a few even began to tell me their stories, their vulnerabilities and I quickly began to realise something. I had unwittingly surrounded myself with a tribe who were real, who were not in the least bit perfect, but to me that’s what made them all perfect. They had colour, they had experience.

They were red.

As I have matured and grown emotionally and I guess spiritually I have realised that to be authentic I have to own my darker side in the same way I did the nicer side. I always felt that the character traits I perceived to be attractive, that I felt were what others found the compelling parts of me were the most important and valued aspects of me. I couldn’t see that this was completely wrong, that I am the absolute sum of all of my parts, of all of my experiences.

To truly appreciate light one must embrace darkness.

Be red.