Great article. Reminds me of my favorite quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"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".
Here's a personal example of both/and. I buy raw milk, and I work in public health and support pasteurized store-bought milk as the safest way to consume milk. I boil my milk at home, and if I didn't, I know that there would be risks. Why someone chooses one over the other typically includes lots of preferences and risk tolerance. They're both right in some ways and wrong in others. Public health folks demonize raw-milk drinkers as MAGA crackpots. Raw-milk drinkers demonize public health as a mindless big-ag conspirator.
I am neither a MAGA crackpot nor a mindless conspirator, but I can agree with some of what both sides have to say...and most days I can still retain the ability to function. 😄
Thank you for sharing this. I live in a rural area and have many friends who purchase raw milk and do the same re: heating at home. It’s never as simple as we make it.
Yes, yes, yes. I'm the guest editor of the upcoming annual MBC issue of Wildfire Journal, and we chose the theme "paradox" because reality of living with cancer is not binary. I have a lot of gratitude, and a lot of resentment. I feel joy and grief. At the same time. Learning to hold two opposite feeling truths at the same time expands our capacity to live well.
a large portion of dialectical behavioral therapy is practicing sitting with the both/and. i am lucky to have practiced this a lot in therapy settings (though i definitely still struggle with it), and i am convinced our world would be much improved if more people learned how to use this tool! thank you for teaching it here!
Great article. Reminds me of my favorite quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"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".
Here's a personal example of both/and. I buy raw milk, and I work in public health and support pasteurized store-bought milk as the safest way to consume milk. I boil my milk at home, and if I didn't, I know that there would be risks. Why someone chooses one over the other typically includes lots of preferences and risk tolerance. They're both right in some ways and wrong in others. Public health folks demonize raw-milk drinkers as MAGA crackpots. Raw-milk drinkers demonize public health as a mindless big-ag conspirator.
I am neither a MAGA crackpot nor a mindless conspirator, but I can agree with some of what both sides have to say...and most days I can still retain the ability to function. 😄
Thank you for sharing this. I live in a rural area and have many friends who purchase raw milk and do the same re: heating at home. It’s never as simple as we make it.
Yes, yes, yes. I'm the guest editor of the upcoming annual MBC issue of Wildfire Journal, and we chose the theme "paradox" because reality of living with cancer is not binary. I have a lot of gratitude, and a lot of resentment. I feel joy and grief. At the same time. Learning to hold two opposite feeling truths at the same time expands our capacity to live well.
Thank you for sharing this with me. I completely agree that it does expand our capacity to live well.
Great post. Not only do we as individuals need to embrace uncertainty and complexity, but our institutions do. I think that we need a historical paradigm shift, with complex systems theory at the foundation. I highlighted your post in my most recent scene: https://otherpossibilities.substack.com/p/scene-44-from-1886-to-today-why-health?r=302vvs
Thank you for sharing and for your post. Very interesting!
Excellent, thank you.
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Great article - love this approach 👏
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a large portion of dialectical behavioral therapy is practicing sitting with the both/and. i am lucky to have practiced this a lot in therapy settings (though i definitely still struggle with it), and i am convinced our world would be much improved if more people learned how to use this tool! thank you for teaching it here!
💕💕