[phrontist]

Originally Posted by Ken Leung

1. Yin & Yang

One of the most fundamental ways human uses to understand this world is opposite ideas, such as Yin & Yang. You cannot understand good without evil, cold without hot, up without down, light without dark, white without black, strong without weak, and so on. Everything has its opposite, one cannot exist without the other. You can’t have a universe where everything is good, hot, or heavy. Nor can you define what’s “right” without “wrong”, “up” without “down”, or “strong” without “weak”. When you look at something, you inevitably compare it to others. But at the same time, we are very limited with this two-ness of opposite ideas, and we are often trapped in dividing things into what they are and what they are not, instead of really looking at the true nature of the object we are observing.

I just read this last night, and thought it to be the best the concept has ever been put into words.

Originally Posted by Herman Melville

We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.