Photo taken in Milan, Italy
Picking Sides
It makes sense to root for the good guy. In any story or film, we watch the main character grow from start to finish.
Scene by scene, we absorb their gut-wrenching struggles and emotional battles. With every twist, we live through them.
We watch them recover from mistreatment, gain insight, and build new resolve—we see it all happen. We feel each emotion that shapes the perspective we follow most closely.
So we invest ourselves. We want the good guy to win and earn the redemption he’s chasing.
Then there’s the bad guy—the one who seems to lack any redeeming quality. We expect our villain to be harsh, unlikable, even ruthless.
Often, their backstory is minimal or revealed only near the end. So, we rarely get a full picture of what made them who they are.
For some, words like insane or evil seem like the perfect fit. So naturally, given all this, how could we not want the hero to win and save the day?
When we’re asked to choose between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the decision seems obvious. In binary thinking, one side is right, the other is wrong.
But is it always that simple?
What feels clear to one person might not to another, especially when context is missing or when biased information clouds understanding.
The opposite of polarization is paradox—the ability to hold two seemingly contradictory truths at once. Of course, not all arguments are equally valid.
But when we identify opposing truths that both contain value, we shift into a broader worldview. We begin to see that not everything is black or white in a world where things are not always as simple as they seem.
Opposites Attract
One challenging situation is choosing to understand both sides of an argument. In heated debates, we often see one person fiercely defending their stance against another who’s just as passionate.
At times, one side may indeed grasp the bigger picture. But in other cases, I’ve found myself in debates where both parties were making valid points—each offering a different piece of a larger puzzle.
It often resembled two children, both convinced their puzzle piece was the most important. But in truth, both were needed to complete the whole picture.
At its core, the issue often boils down to values and which ones people prioritize. Binary thinking complicates this because it narrows our view.
It divides people by forcing them into opposing camps, making it harder to build understanding. But embracing a dualistic mindset helps us step outside that trap.
It lets us sit with conflicting ideas and see how they might actually complement each other instead of canceling each other out.
Maybe that’s why opposites attract. In The Crack-Up, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
This and That
Embracing contradictions isn’t always easy. Those who do might be criticized for seeming inconsistent or indecisive.
After all, refusing to pick just one side is rarely seen as a mark of stability. But isn’t that a contradiction in itself?
It’s strange how someone’s honest effort to understand different views can make them seem insincere—or how admitting what they don’t know can make them appear ignorant.
Life is full of contradictions. We see it everywhere. Our growth requires both stability and change.
Our weaknesses can become our strengths. Our greatest challenges often turn into our biggest breakthroughs.
Perhaps this explains why our preferences evolve. We’re not just changing our minds—we’re expanding our perspective. Moving past our old views shows proof of growth.
It’s a move away from the rigidity of polarized thinking. Polarization in storytelling and society often spreads the fear, negativity, and judgment that come with it.
It sows division so strongly that we lose sight of the common thread connecting us all. But sometimes, it’s not about this or that.
In many situations, we need to embrace this and that. Instead of defaulting to either/or thinking, a both/and approach may serve us better.
By valuing shared experience and embracing complexity, we better understand our collective wholeness—and can respond to challenges with more authenticity. In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah writes:
“As a kid I understood that people were different colors, but in my head white and black and brown were like types of chocolate. Dad was the white chocolate, mom was the dark chocolate, and I was the milk chocolate. But we were all just chocolate.”
Breaking Through
We often face paradox in moments when emotions are mixed. These times can be confusing because we’re holding many things at once.
It’s normal to recall memories that are both joyful and painful, exciting and stressful, simple and difficult. Embracing this paradox helps us understand reality more fully.
It reveals the many layers behind every person, event, or conversation. It also opens us to hidden context and unseen possibilities.
Though it may seem counterintuitive, finding meaning in contradiction can actually bring clarity. Just as ease and tension are both needed for growth, our hardest moments can guide us toward our greatest breakthroughs.
In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes:
“A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day. It’s called the Augusteum. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the barbarians came they trashed it along with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome’s first true great emperor. How could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins? It’s one of the quickest, loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over the centuries. It feels like a precious wound, a heartbreak you won’t let go because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we’re afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked around this place, at the chaos it has endured—the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. And I was reassured, maybe my life hasn’t been so chaotic, it’s just the world that is, and the real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.”
Villain or Human?
I didn’t always think this way about villains. Growing up, I saw them as the source of every problem in the story.
That’s why I, like many others, got swept up in the outrage these characters provoked. After all, wasn’t that the point of good vs. evil storytelling—to stir up strong reactions?
I played along, emotionally invested and easily led by the story’s dramatic contrasts—good versus bad, hero versus villain.
That changed when, in school, we were assigned to write a fictional story from a well-known villain’s perspective—without altering the original plot.
My attempt was average at best, but the lesson stayed with me.
It taught me the power of context. I realized how much more there is to any story, and that understanding someone doesn’t mean excusing their actions.
It simply means seeking insight into why they behave as they do. Because, as outsiders, we can never fully grasp the influence of nature and nurture in someone’s life.
There is always more beneath the surface. Good and bad exist in all of us.
I’ve been reminded of this lesson many times. One thing someone once told me has stuck with me ever since: “If you lived through everything another person lived through, you would make the exact same choices.”
To this day, that still resonates. It doesn’t justify harmful actions. But it does invite compassion. It allows us to hold more than anger—to acknowledge more than one truth at once. Not as a sign of confusion, but as a recognition of what it means to be human.
The more we learn, the more we realize how much we don’t know. Then again, therein lies another paradox.
