Exhausting Hangover Of Bull-Bear Ideologies

"Dualistic thinking is a sickness." - Lao Tzu

No, this is not a post on discussing the stock market and its bull-bear philosophy. Rather, this post is about an attempt to explain why humanity needs to be beyond the mindset of duality. We are living in a world that confines us to a way of life inspired by bullish vs. bearish mindsets. Anything bullish can never be bearish, and vice versa. It’s a form of hangover from rigid play of minds for ages, and yes, it is exhausting. Why? Because the ones who do not agree or adhere to the guidelines become obsolete, automatically. This dualistic system pushes them out, brutally, with no warning. It forces us to feel that - “If you are not one of us, then we will make you be one of us”. However, this is nothing but a rigid agreement. An agreement inherited by the system that does not accept the notion of allowing exploration of the other possibilities, before a brutal discard.

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The disagreements of the middle path

To be honest, the hangover is a clever deception to hide the side that is fear of the unknown. Yes, it is fear-driven. It is shying away from inquisitiveness. The intense dance of the day-to-day struggle has become an obsession. A quiet pause, and mindful segregation for arriving at an outcome of manifold, is a rigid impossibility. Have you ever wondered why a famous Western religion has a symbolic concept of the Trinity, the three natures of GOD? In quantum computing, a qubit, or quantum bit, is the fundamental unit of information and can exist in a superposition of both states simultaneously, meaning it can represent a combination of 0 and 1 with certain probabilities. Why didn’t it stick to just 0 and 1? Why does an Eastern religion have a concept of three forms for GOD with a specific purpose - i.e., destruction, creation, and preservation? There are endless examples to be presented. However, this should force us to drive ourselves beyond this dualist thinking. Another eastern religion gave a concept of “The middle path” when it comes to living a life shaped by spiritual values. In short, the bulls are stuck with the thinking that “the best is yet to come”, whereas the bears are stuck with the thinking that “it is better to be prepared for the worst”. Bulls never cared to ask: “If best is yet to come, what is that best? Is it best for us or all? Can the mediocracy or the outdated be turned into the best, rather than abandoning them?”. Also, the bears never cared to ask: “If the worst has not yet arrived, then why worry? Is being prepared for the unknown is better choice or affording to focus on shaping something useful a better choice?”. The bulls and bears never reflect on their shadows or shortcomings; rather, they waste time on forcing their beliefs on others. Both mindsets have their place. Bulls drive creative expansion, while bears bring discipline and warning against excess. So why can’t there be an unknown charter for balancing these two?

Anything obsessive is harmful. The failure of awareness, recognition can be devastating for peaceful existence and evolution. Human evolution can never be monolithic.

A new way of thinking

The solution to overcome this hangover of bull-bear ideologies can come in many shapes. Let’s see some of them one by one.

Abundance Thinking

Some bulls may think that abundance is all about the immediate availability of infinite resources. Whereas the bears may argue that it is not even possible. But what if we argue that “Abundance is a two-fold phenomenon.”. First, it is an act of realistically or creatively procuring resources from beyond immediate available pockets. Second, it’s an act of mindful consumption (i.e., non-exploiting) and preservation of resources from available pockets. When are we going to have the final courage to stand up to tell the scarcity that together we are not scared of you?

The needs of all outweigh the needs of few or many

Discriminating against people, inflicting pain on others, etc., are the thinking of cultic culture. Few ideologies focus on serving a small set of people, while others focus on religion, age, or even the color of the skin. But the best approach we all need to start focusing on is to think for all, plan for all, build for all, and guard for all. If we can’t perceive the needs of the last miles, then we do not have the right to decorate our faces wearing smiles. People have believed in policies like “Trickle Down” or “Rockets for Pockets” for a long time now. There is nothing wrong if we claim that discrimination is a form of disease. Once we recognize this, searching for a cure becomes imminent.

We don’t split the disagreements, we park them for a while

There is an easy way to decide, it’s enough. From now onwards, I do not sit aside and watch the divide getting bigger and bigger, just because we did not agree on a few things. We need to learn a new habit of parking aside differences for a definite period, not discarding them once and for all. This gives us a hint that burning bridges is not acceptable.

All ways of living lead to GOD

The current world is highly inclined towards a technology-driven life. The more we become digital, we lose more human essence. There is a huge mass of people who have accepted that a technology-oriented life gives us better chances of survival. But rather than thinking about diversifying our survival options, we accept this thinking as normal, because we have forgotten to lead our lives out of our comfort zones. There can be other ways of living life, highly influenced by spirituality, nature, minimalism, consumerism, nomadic, cultural or traditional, intellectual, creativity, activism, and entrepreneurship. This can be thought of as highly aligned to the soul when you live such a life by keeping GOD at the core and serving others. Society needs more designers to think thoroughly about all these ways of living, with the essence of peace and well-being for all at the core.

Even spirituality needs innovation

Religions have given us faith. Faith can move mountains. But honestly, if you ask a high percentage of people may not even be able to define the difference between spirituality and religion. Religion introduces us to GOD. While spirituality introduces a way to achieve or become like GOD. Spirituality can be a tremendously powerful force for shaping our lives. A handful of people have started exploring spiritual depths. This opens up possibilities of innovating spirituality and using it to manifest a beautiful life for all, full of potential, peace, creativity, and justice.

From Human Rights to Human Dignity

Have you got a chance to educate yourself that the Human Rights Commission under the United Nations has declared a total of 30 fundamental Human Rights as per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? However, we have forgotten to demand accountability from it, when we find many of them are not even practiced. They are best kept on paper. If we can’t enforce accountability and responsibility, how can we expect our governments to be well-equipped to deliver them to us on a silver platter? This is the foundational need for human dignity. If all humans are born free and equal, it is our responsibility to work collectively and creatively in a peaceful manner to claim that dignity. Killing creative people and their diverse thinking is the most cruel gift humanity can give to itself.

Conclusion

Let us stop outsourcing responsibilities and accountabilities to a pocket of caretakers. We all are caretakers. We need to learn to honor creative thinking and use it for the greater good, and all.

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