Yin + Yang

The concepts of Yin and Yang originate in ancient Chinese philosophy and metaphysics, which describes two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe. Yin (Chinese: literally "shady place, north slope (hill), south bank (river); cloudy, overcast") is the darker element; it is sad, passive, dark, feminine, downward-seeking, and corresponds to the night. Yang ("sunny place, south slope (hill), north bank (river); sunshine") is the brighter element; it is happy, active, light, masculine, upward-seeking and corresponds to the day.
Wikipedia


i guess most of us are familiar with the Yin and Yang symbol and with the idea that both Yin and Yang qualities are present in all of us. nothing new there, but today i do have a bit of an issue with the passive/feminine and active/male associations and thus the fact that we find it natural to associate women more with the Yin and men with the Yang... personally, i find this a limiting view and i feel this may be more of a consequence of a male-driven society that insists in "relegating" the passive polarity to women while also perceiving it as "weaker" (old judgements which are fortunately falling apart in modern times). my perspective is that those two polarities (passive/active) are androgynous and exist in both males and females of all species. so, i feel we often tend to read (interpret?) the Yin and Yang so that it mirrors a human society made up of individuals with unbalanced polarities, rather than looking at it as an independent model of perfection that should be reflected in every individual (the ideal)...

while one could easily argue that women are generally more in touch with the passive polarity and men with the active polarity, this is not always the case for individuals (particularly in liberal societies) and so i feel one should question if this is natural or a product of our male-driven history and traditions. we only have to look at the animal kingdom, where females actually tend to have a much more active role than males to see how these associations don't always hold up. take, as an example, lionesses hunting or female bees doing most of the colony work. my simplistic view on it is that all individuals aspiring to reach their full potential strive to achieve the balance expressed in the diagram, regardless of being male or female. i feel that when an individual is close to this ideal, there is no longer a predominantly active or passive force because of the defining sex but - rather - the individual acts passively or actively according to what is perceived as appropriate to the moment. ultimately, there is no clear division but a constant flux of both... like when you are discussing whatever issue, you must listen appropriately (Yin) and respond appropriately (Yang).

more recently i feel that my past extreme expressions and repressions of either my Yin (passive) or Yang (active) sides were a demonstration that i was not one with myself and this caused emotional instability at times. i'm talking for myself here so these are my feelings... here's a story to illustrate this... last year, i had two avatars in a forum. originally i created one identity which evolved naturally and i believed it was a faithful representation of the real "me". this "me" was striving to be nice, sensible, tolerant and non-conflictive but turned out somewhat passive when, a couple of months later, i found myself discussing some very polemic issues, such as abortion, immigration and religion. i had to deal with some very aggressive - sometimes even rude - arguments... i didn't know how to respond to a guy who defended that all european muslims should be repatriated, except white ones, or to a girl that reduced a 4 month's old human foetus to a parasite, in order to justify her position on abortion. of course, these are the extremes... but how do we deal with such arguments? ignore and be silent, while words like these spread around?

i wanted to restrain myself from responding harshly but i also wanted to fight back, only i didn't know how to maintain the balanced, non-conflictive "myself" i was working hard to maintain. my "escape crutch" was to create another character which was a very satirical evil character (his name was Satan hehehe), a lot more active, which i used to ridicule what went clearly against my most fundamental values, such as "equality" and "human dignity"... i could turn to those i perceived as "extremists" and offer them a place or a job in hell and actively expose the consequences of their extreme positions while playing on their side. with racism i was comically merciless... with abortion i had to be somewhat cynic but a lot more cautious... anyway... i found myself playing these comical acts to "level" my empathy levels regarding certain groups of humans with those of whom i was communicating and connecting with...

most certainly, i can look back and think this was therapeutical and even fun... until the day someone didn't discern i was being satirical and fictional and complained to a moderator, when i realised that my exploration had gone far enough... chance or providence agreed and the moderator kicked Satan out. ... time to move on... what started as a playful act eventually produced what i felt were some very important realisations about myself:

1. i was hiding behind a mask (the satirical identity) to protect the reputation of the original identity ("myself"). as a satirical Satan, i could say practically anything and leave "myself" unstained.
2. today, i realise that the original identity was not the true and balanced me. rather, for me to reach the full balanced me, i had to find a way to merge both active and passive identities, without suppressing/repressing either one or the other.
3. the character Satan allowed me to set free, explore and work on my active side.
4. i realise today that what caused most of my past internal and even external conflicts was my own passivity (repression of the active) towards certain situations and to avoid confrontation, which then caused bottling up until i couldn't take any more of an issue, when i finally exploded in anger (very rare, but when it happened it reaaaally happened).

this now reminds me of someone once telling me about allowing ourselves the time to write discussions between our conscious and subconscious... it also reminds me of the fictional character Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde and even the very real and severe psychological cases of split personalities. i'm a layman in psychology but this makes me wonder if the most extreme cases of the later may be the consequence of an extreme suppression/repression of either one and/or the other polarity, which then causes bursts that last shorter or longer periods that seem to be "out of character"... i realise this is a very simplistic view which becomes much more complex when you start exploring the causes (which can be plenty and feed each other) but i do feel this split personality syndrome (in a perspective of the split of the two polarities) tends to exist in the large majority of us, to whichever extent. it can happen one moment and not in the next. with some of us this is almost imperceptible while in others this split can take dramatic proportions. is the person at work exactly the same as the person at home? is a child molester always a "monster"?

the bursts of the repressed polarity are not necessarily negative though. on one side you could have a woman who's had enough of her husband's unfaithfulness and, after years of saying nothing, suddenly explodes and decides she's had enough of it (she had been repressing her active side). on the other, you could have a man who is usually known as cold and unemotional but whose soft-side comes out when he becomes a father (he had been repressing his passive side). when i see, as i have seen, a mother running across a busy road carrying her baby in her arms, i get the sense that her passive polarity must be anywhere but in her conscious; all she's thinking is how to cross the road as quickly as possible... now, say a man who is always submissive to his superior's rude and unfair behaviour and doesn't respond out of fear of loosing the job... here, i sense a repression of his active polarity.

personally, i feel that modern lifestyles tend to be generally more repressive/suppressive of our passive polarity (we rush a lot) and i would even dare guess that there are more women becoming more and more in touch with their active polarity than men becoming in touch with their passive polarity (though i feel the number is growing). however, we have to put up with a lot of unfairness in our professional, personal and civic lives and our active polarity often gets repressed out of some fear (loosing a job, a relationship, being ridiculed, etc.) or because we feel we simply don't know how to respond without loosing our temper. when our lifestyles push us to repress/suppress both polarities at different times, what effect does that have on our psyches? what chances do we have to reach this balanced ideal?

more recently, i have come to the realisation that these two polarities are both present in me and they should not be conflictive. i've let go completely of the association "passive/feminine" and "active/masculine"... rather, i've accepted these two polarities as both part of me and i feel they should be aligned with each other and be never repressed, if i wish to be coherent in thought and actions and avoid internal and external conflicts. all my life i've tended to repress the active to avoid confrontation and the end product was that the issues grew internally like a snowball and eventually crashed after a period of relative peace. now i am exploring much more the active front and the results have been quite amazing; i am letting it out but in more constructive ways... i feel that, until we sort our polarity conflicts out we tend to feel that a part of us is out character when - really - both polarities are part of us and we just have to find the way for them to be consistent with each other and non-conflictive. presently, i tend to perceive the passive polarity as my "rest mode", from which action emerges. in this sense, they are no longer opposites but complementary; assisting eachother. i feel this gives priority to observation of the moment to then act as appropriately as i can. constant contemplation without action is useless and action without contemplation risks being inappropriate.

as i said, the effects on both my emotional stability and those that surround me is clearly positive, even if at times i am misunderstood or even ridiculed. the fact is, it doesn't trouble me anymore as i'm not worried a single bit by what anyone thinks of me. on the contrary, i am very happy to be perceived as a fool, as it is a small price to pay if only to be so emotionally stable. i win and so do the people closest to me. surely, wherever there is communication between two fundamentally different perspectives, serious misunderstandings will always be a risk. still, after a very turbulent last year in my life, i have recently rediscovered the feeling of having just met someone, only that this someone is exactly the same person i've been with for 5 years. my ability to love has recovered exponentially, to the point that today i realise that love can be ever lasting and eventually become quite effortless... for that, all i need to do is to work on recovering my own active and passive balance and watch how it also slowly and effortlessly assists my other-half to reach inner balance. i don't stay quiet anymore when there is a difference of opinion or when i feel my personal space is being attacked, i don't allow myself to bottle up issues but - simultaneously - i tend to deal with these differences in a much more gentle, patient and persevering way... i am far from perfect, but i'm working to get as close as i possibly can.