Beyond the Liminal Vantage

Binary is a departure from the conditioned acceptability to brave our choices

- Suraj Milind Yengde

WE often think of the world through binaries. It is either one end or the other. If it is not right, then it has to be left. If it is not the sun, then it is the moon. Day-night, sweet-sour, hard-soft, we allude to judgements despite not living on either side easily.

There is hardly anything concrete to shape the world into binaries. Nature is multipolar. There are modes of communication that amplify through colours, palettes, smells, tastes and weather. Our senses react to variations. Diversities and multiple angles with and without axes make for an encircling life.

Binary is also the demonstration of our limitations that we are unable to explore beyond the liminal vantage. Binary is a departure from the conditioned acceptability to brave our choices.

I was also bought into the idea of working through binaries. Either do this or that, do not mess with too much. Why bother with the endless possibilities the world offers? Limit your choices and you can find it easy to live. During shopping experiences, in particular, I get overwhelmed. I know that I need a particular item to buy. I have a budget and then I explore. Yet I get jammed into the traffic of too many items to purchase. The consumerism of the salaried classes makes binary a defiance.

When the choices are offered as multiple, our options to pick are expendable. Our analytical minds as well as tests to assess our ability are explored in multiple choice questions and not in binarism.

If we live in the world of limited possibilities, life becomes disciplined, and we follow the path. If the path is productive it helps in self-growth, if it is destructive we gain notoriety.

But wisdom doesn't come in hardened binaries. It does not consider the edges of the mind to produce a palpable warning of possibilities. Wisdom asks us to penetrate into our vulnerabilities and explore the self through the reflection of changing waterscapes working through arrested thoughts.