The Meaning of Opposites

While waiting at a bus stop one day, a man finds himself talking with a blind kid. At some point in the conversation, the man makes a remark about color and the kid responds by asking what color is. The man stops to think before giving the kid the scientific explanation of color; color is light that was partially absorbed by a surface before reflecting off that surface and being registered by a person’s eyes. “Okay,” the blind kids says, “but what’s light?” The man explains that light is the opposite of dark only to find the boy doesn’t know what dark is either. The man is confused as he’d believed the kid would know what dark is if dark is all a blind person can see. However, this would be impossible as a person to whom light has no meaning can’t know dark because dark can only be defined by the absence of light, just as bad can only be described by the absence of good. In Life of Pi, the threat of starvation constantly hanging over his head made Pi realize that food, even unholy meat, was vital to his survival so the meat from the ever present fish became good, even becoming described as a blessing, because it kept the life threatening hunger at bay. For a concept to exist, it’s opposite must also exist to define it and give it meaning.

Probably the most interesting paradox in existence is the fact that good relies on bad and bad relies on good to exist. Most people would contest this, saying good couldn’t rely on bad because good things are supposed to terminate bad things, and bad things treat good things in kind. However, isn’t that how the concepts of good and bad are defined? In the terms of religion, is God’s greatness not defined by His lack of sin as the Devil’s evil is by the sins he committed? Good must seek to terminate bad to make the world happy as bad must seek to terminate good to take this happiness away. When Pi was stuck in the life boat, food, even the previously evil meat, was the good that kept him from dying and stove off hunger, which was the bad thing, caused by a lack of food, that sought to steal away his happiness and even drove him far enough into desperation to taste Richard Parker’s droppings. What people who would say that good and bad can’t rely on each other will fail to question is exactly what would happen if there were no bad for the good to conquer, or if there were no good for the bad to attempt to destroy. If there had been no looming danger of starvation during the time Pi was lost at sea, food wouldn’t have become such a blessing, but rather, only be seen as plain food, neither good nor bad, without any purpose. It’s like how a blind man sees only darkness, yet has no idea what darkness is because he’s never seen light; people can only know that an object or action is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ if they know of the existence of an object or action that is ‘worse’ or ‘better’. We know there’s good and there’s bad, but imagine if there were no bad and only good. Neither would exist because there would be nothing to compare good to, and thus no way for good to be observable or discoverable by human means. The same goes for bad without good. In a world with no good, good and bad would not exist, and no one would ever protest all the ‘bad’ things that happen in the world because they’d  have no way of know there was anything better. The presence of bad things are needed for good things to exist.

This good and bad paradox is not just applicable to the concepts of good and bad. This paradox also holds true when it is said that there couldn’t be pleasure without pain or pain without pleasure. For instance, if one were to rub sand paper for a long time, the sand would feel horrible and rough when they began to rub it, but by the time they stopped, the hand which was rubbing the sandpaper so long would have become numb to the texture. If they were to rub the same hand a few times against a soft pillow, however, and then rub the sandpaper once more, the softness of the pillow would first be amplified due to the contrast of the soft texture to the rough, then the switch from the pleasure of the pillow to the sandpaper would make the roughness the hand had become numb to before be felt in all it’s displeasure once again. In a world where there’s only pain, the absence of pleasure would make people unable to contrast their constant pain to, and because one can’t miss what one never had, pain wouldn’t really be pain anymore, but take the place of normalcy instead. On the island, the same happens to Pi with pleasure. There was no danger of starvation to loom over Pi’s head or any threat of being attacked or painfully killed. Pleasure was the only thing present on the island of meerkats and sugary algae, with no pain or threat of pain as long as he stayed above ground during the nights. When Pi arrived on the island, he’d believed he’d found paradise and endless pleasures, but as the time he’d spent on the island passed, the lack of pain to contrast the pleasure meant the pleasures of the island slowly transitioned from the most wondrous blessing to normalcy. The pleasures of the island lost the grandeur they’d previously had, their meaning became less, and soon, Pi, like many many people in the modern world do with their daily pleasures, began to take these things for granted. In fact, things that were at least a hundred times less miraculous, such as a freshly caught fish, had been treated as much greater pleasures when Pi was lost at sea than the island was near the end of Pi’s time ashore. Of course, the pleasures of the island were still there, physically unchanged, but, like paint on a house, the meaning that was once associated with these wonders faded when there was no longer any threat or danger to apply a fresh coat. Just like how a person who has nothing sees the meaning in all the pleasures in a home better than the one who owns the home’s contents, when any amount of pleasure is experienced everyday without threat of discontinuation, it means next to nothing. In the absence of pain, pleasure did not disappear, but so much of its meaning had been lost that it might as well have.   

When one applies this paradox--the fact that every concept must have an opposite and it is this opposite that gives the concept meaning--to the concepts of Life and Death, it becomes apparent that Death is the reason Life has meaning. It’s a simple matter of comparing Life and Death to each other in the same ways we compare good to bad or pain to pleasure. If Death were compared to Life as complete opposites, meaning such concepts as life after Death or reincarnation are dropped since they would make Death more closely resemble Life that it should as it’s opposite, than Death must be infinite as Life has a beginning and end, and Death could only be described as nothing because it is only during Life that anything could happen. Death is infinite nothing, and Life is finite everything. The analogy that would probably best describe this would be a densely populated, sleepless island that lies in the middle of a dead sea. In this sea, there are no fish, no ocean floor and no land save the single island full of constant activity. The only thing that happens in this sea of Death is its constant creation of waves meant to crash upon the island’s shore and carry away the people who’ve gotten too close. This endless sea of nothing has led the people to cherish the island that is Life and are constantly reminded of their island’s importance with every wave that steals away another soul. Pi said “The reason Death sticks so closely to Life isn’t biological necessity--it’s envy. Life is so beautiful that Death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.” Death IS envious of Life because Life does everything, has everything, and is everything. Yet Death has fallen in love with Life because Life is the whole reason for Death’s existence, and in Death’s envious love, it grabs what it can from Life’s shores to keep with it within the nothing that surrounds Life’s small island on all sides. To avoid this grasping hand of Death has been the fantasy of many a generation, each of which has never thought of what the impact of their success might be. What is Life without Death? It’s the same as pleasure without pain. Without the fear of Death, without the very real possibility that this very moment may be the last, Life loses it’s meaning. There is no drive to live Life before it ends because immortality means Life won’t end and one has all the time in the world to do what is desired. Getting back to a mortal life, all these things, from Death’s constant threat to the reality of only having a limited time to enjoy Life, are present to keep the urgency to live in mind. Death is what gives Life meaning because when we compare Life to the infinite void of Death, it becomes apparent that Life is all we really have.

Blind men cannot fully understand the concept of darkness because they have never know the concept of light. A person can not know anything good of they have never seen bad. It is the comparison to it’s opposite that allows a concept to be observed, and the proof of this statement is the fact that all concepts have an opposite. Good is to bad as pain is to pleasure as dark is to light as Life is to Death. The meaning in a concept is also defined by its opposite. When pain is taken out of the equation, pleasure is less pleasurable because there is nothing to interrupt it and renew it’s meaning. Death is what gives Life meaning because Death brings out all the good things in Life. The meaning of a concept, and even the actual existence of a concept is defined by it’s opposite. That’s how it is, and that’s how it will be until we find something better.