In The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are Alan Watts lets us in on the game of Black-and-White, or better yet the game we all play of White vs Black, and still further the game of White Must Win.
But white doesn’t always win, and it doesn’t always need to win. Black wins too. We don’t accept that black wins. Life has to win over death. Heaven has to win over hell. Good has to triumph over evil. But in reality black does win and white only exists because of black. Life only exists because of death. So how can we value one over the other? Watts writes, “There are many ways in which the game of Black-and-White is switched into the game of ‘White must win,’ and, like the battle for survival, they depend upon ignoring, or screening out of consciousness, the interdependence of the two sides.” They are two parts of the same whole but we like to pretend that one has more value than the other. And so we repress black. We disdain black. Our restlessness is rooted in our inability to accept black.
It’s a lesson in the value of opposites, in not taking sides. Watts often talks about the value of black, the value of contemplating our own deaths, the value of confronting our shadows, of how energizing black can be. When we hold the tension between white and black we’re living in the energy field, we are fully alive. There’s no moral high ground. There’s no people to demonize. There’s less shame and guilt. We allow ourselves to be whole.
Turning and facing the darkness has the same transformational power as running toward the light.
