The Cross

"The deepest contradictions of human life are not there to be solved but to be lived in full consciousness of their contradictoriness." (4)

The cross represents the dual qualities of fear and excitement in separating from what we previously identified with. Feeling stifled and also eager for new experiences, we leave "home" to embark on new quests and adventures. Armed with our hopes and ideals we set forth into the unknown, naively oblivious to what awaits us. But we also suspect the new world to be unsafe, so we tread slowly at first. There is always an ambivalence about leaving comfort and security. We want to be independent, but this also means being on our own and having to deal with the consequences of our choices and actions. We previously met this tension and ambivalence at birth when it was time to leave the comfort of the womb. We encountered it again at an early age during our psychological birth. In each case the threat of engulfment and the fear of abandonment confront each other within us.

The ambivalence we feel keeps us from leaving prematurely, but it can also hold us back too long. It is ironic that the very ambivalence which holds us back from the cross, actually partakes of the nature of the cross. When the ambivalence grows stronger than our attachment to the circle, we will have arrived at the cross, although we may not readily acknowledge it. This lack of acknowledgment is unfortunate, for acceptance helps us to quickly learn the lessons involved. As we shall see, denial compounds the unpleasant aspect of the cross.

Sometimes facing problems, suffering and conflict is too difficult or burdensome. At these times it is wise to put things on the shelf until we feel ready and better able to handle them. But a pattern of avoidance or denial only delays an inevitable encounter. Like an unpaid bank loan, the burden mounts up. According to Scott Peck, "This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness." (5) Avoidance and denial require a significant amount of energy, leaving enough to be only half alive. As we get older and our energy decreases, we eventually come to a point where we can no longer hold back all those "unpleasant" or "bad" aspects of life. And if we wait too long, what has accumulated may be more than we can handle. If the buildup has not gone too far, with some help we may be able to process little bits of it at a time so as not to be overwhelmed.

Becoming our own person is not automatically bestowed on us, but must be earned through successfully meeting the many challenges life brings. The cross represents the burdens and challenges we must overcome to attain selfhood. Tension, opposition, conflict, challenges, fragmentation, plurality, confusion, agitation, turmoil, anxiety, brokenness, pain, stress, suffering, and disease all belong to this realm. Understandably we tend to want to avoid these things, but this course is not always the wisest. Much of life's conflict and suffering is needless, the result of carelessness, unawareness, or ignorance, but some of it is necessary and unavoidable. Not only is it part of the human condition, it is part of our destiny, an arduous phase in our transition toward individuality and personhood.

The world of duality and separation bestows individuality, uniqueness, freedom, and self-awareness. The cross phase holds the possibility of being a separate person and having power in and over the world. It brings control over the environment, so that we are no longer at its mercy. Life becomes an adventure and gives us the wonderful exhilaration of exploration and discovery. We acquire rational thinking and grow in knowledge and power, in the process getting a sense that we are masters over the world. On a collective level, this has brought about the immense success and power of science and technology, as well as longer life spans and comfortable living.

But success does not come without its costs. True to its nature, the cross is a two-edged sword. While it gives us freedom and individuality, at a certain point it turns a corner. We are then asked to harmonize and integrate our new powers of thinking and awareness, our individualism and self-consciousness, with the rest of ourselves and the rest of the world. The mind is asked to put itself on the same level as that with which it has become aware of. It is asked to rate itself as one of the things it has stood above. We use the word "understand", but in terms of what actually happens, the mind feels like it is "on top of the world". Rather than being "under", it feels itself standing "over". It really is time for humility and a death and rebirth of the ego. It becomes our task to integrate the cross with the circle.

This is a difficult challenge, primarily because what we have struggled so long to achieve has become the ruler of our lives. Our independence and self-consciousness is now at the top of the hierachy and is not prone to give up its position. Usurping the role of the heart is not without consequences. But not until it experiences and suffers these consequences does the mind finally reliquish its throne and agree to cooperate and become part of a bigger enterprise. To attain independence and self-consciousness we have had to narrow the scope of our world. We may in turn have come to comprehend a larger world, but this is fundamentally an abstract world, not a real one. Even though we seem to be able to control many things, this control is limited in its scope and utimately has a detrimental impact.

If we do not see the needed change in direction or choose to ignore it, the separateness we have gained subsequently turns into alienation and anxiety. "The honest and humble individual will feel lonelier and more insignificant, as his material knowledge and self-awareness increase." (6) Where before it gave us awareness and power, we now reap ecological imbalance and social upheaval. Collectively, the denial of excesses over the years leads to situations of crisis -- in the environment and in our social and psychological well-being. We are at a point where we are beginning to question the value of what we have gained. Many people are renouncing consciousness and individuality and seeking a return to a more innocent and primitive way of life (i.e. back to the circle phase). But this is a naive and simplistic answer, for whatever the benefits, an abdication of rational thought leaves one defenseless in many circumstances. Those who champion this view have not fully left the circle stage.

Most people recognize the folly of regressing, even if unconsciously, and place themselves firmly in a mode of separateness, or individualism, and proceed to vacillate between two polarities. On the one hand they bury themselves with diversion to avoid the dilemma, often using gains realized from being a separate individual, such as power, sex, or money. On the other hand, they try to solve the problems by persisting on applying what worked before, only more desperately and intensely. But using a tool to solve a problem that initially created the problem to begin with, will produce an even larger problem, snowballing into an ever increasing spiraling cycle or chain reaction. Our present pace of life is following this pattern, and seems intent on hurling us toward some impending apocalyptic event.

Still other, more sensitive souls try to "raise consciousness" of the issue, but this only raises the others' anxiety, and the response is usually a further digging in of the heels. Others again see the absurdity of all the above "answers" and resign themselves to what is. Their energy steadily declines until they fall victim to some debilitating condition.

On the one hand, the cross brings us individuality and consciousness, power and material comfort. On the other hand it bestows anxiety and alienation, tension and conflict. It is tempting to return to the state of the circle where we were in touch with a sense of meaningfulness and being connected with others and nature. While it is good and even necessary for one's mental health to return regularly to the circle, to move back there means losing what was gained through the cross, i.e. to lose consciousness as an individual. While this appears not to be a viable option, to go on without a sense of meaning and a feeling of being connected is empty. It is no wonder that many sensitive people see themselves stuck "between a rock and a hard place" with seemingly no way out, leading to loneliness, depression, or even suicide.

When emerging out of the circle we hesitate to enter into the cross too quickly. When the cross becomes our familiar turf, we are again hesitant to leave it to enter unknown territory. But leave it we must and go through the same process again. For we have grown used to the landscape of the cross, which consequently and ironically has become like a circle. We have become accustomed to tension, conflict, and fragmentation. But these are not of the cross itself, which is the spirit of duality and analysis, but are the consequences of not moving on from the cross. They represent the cross in an extreme form. What we can do to address this dilemma, paradoxically, is to embrace the cross again in the form of "analysis". We can apply it to both of the former states, i.e. the circle and the cross, selecting the beneficial aspects, while leaving behind the harmful parts.

In other words, the cross needs to be applied to itself. We can extract from the cross what is valuable and beneficial, leave the rest, and do the same with the circle. This gives the possibility of combining these parts, and attaining a synthesis, harmony, or resolution between them that can lead us out of our present impasse or predicament.

The cross is a reminder of our task in life, and that is to enter its realm and learn there the lessons of individuality, freedom, and self-awareness, and to combine these with the virtues of the circle, i.e. of interconnectedness, safety, peace; to reconcile oneness and separateness. Having done the work of analysis, the next task is to synthesize the positive parts of each into a new whole. This is the realm of the triangle.

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Feedback or comments welcome.
Dirk Kelder
May 30, 2010.

www.polaritydynamics.com/tc2.htm