DAY 563

in {and out} Week 3: White

Many persons want to see life in black and white or even only in black or white. Obviously, is much more convenient trying to understand the world from this point of view because by reducing categories having a clear explanation for every circumstance, event or behavior is much simpler. Unfortunately the thing is not that easy and our experiences not always respond to well defined patterns or motivations.

I used to wish to be that kind of person. I used to like to have answers and put my experiences inside a few little boxes which were correctly labeled. I didn´t want the chaos or the uncertainty, the variety of real life. I didn´t want my days to be unpredictable, diverse, so I was always struggling to keep order using strange –reductive- methods to control what indeed was uncontrollable.

Now I am learning to allow life to happen. I am learning to embrace the grey and all the colors between the black and the white. I have come to understand that trying to reduce life to something easy to drive creates biases that ruin the allure of raw reality: when we are always denying, repressing, categorizing and acting accordingly, we forget to enjoy what is wild and extravagant and absurd and unreasonable, all that is unexpected or accidental, the miracles and all the things that we think shouldn´t be here but exist anyway.

This is helping me also to stop altering my own story, past or attitudes… in the end, when one has only a small number of compartments for storing persons, ideas or memories,   the only thing that can be done with our changeable and inconstant life is to create a new version of it more homogeneous, less complex.

This has not driven me to a life of confusion and disorder (as I previously thought). Paradoxically, as soon I let go my old and strict mindset, my calm has increased. I have learned that all colors and nuances exist regardless of my opinion about them, that all are important and have a reason for existing in a given moment.

In short, life is not monochromatic, but today we honor white.


This entry is part of a project I am developing with my friend Montse Gallardo. We´ll share a photo every week during 2015. Her photos will be always taken outside and my photos will be indoor shots only. We have created a Facebook page: In and Out. 52 weeks where you can see all the photos of the project.