George,

Reality often is a matter of dichotomies, as in two sides of the same coin. We can’t have the ups, without the downs. The deeper problem is that we have an ideals based culture and assume there is some more perfect state, towards which we should be striving, rather than that it is cyclical.

The evident example would be the political polarities of liberalism and conservatism. Rather than appreciating reality as this cycle of expansion/liberalism and consolidation/conservatism, of social energies and emotions bubbling up as various identities and desires, while cultural and civil forms coalesce into the structures giving society some semblance of order, we divide into groupings pointed in the general directions of these sides of the cycle. Each assuming they are on the road to perfection, so the other must be grievously wrong.

The deeper issue being that our minds are pattern oriented processes, so the overall dynamic is often inscrutable, when the details are most conveniently obvious. Since our sequential thought process evolved to intentionally navigate, its basic function is to take in and sort through the masses of information, in order to make decisions. Expand>consolidate.

Sometimes we just learn to ride the waves and sing the blues, when all else fails.