Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Yin and Yang are Different

Yin and yang are different. They compose a comprehensive whole and cannot be separated, they both are essential, and cannot exist without the other, and yet they are different and in terms of male and female especially, they have a very different social makeup and play by different social rules. This creates a problem because it is almost impossible for either sex to truly understand the other and that creates serious difficulties in relationships. If you are a male, it is very, very hard to understand the female. And if you are female it is very, very hard to understand the male. This leads to multiple problems in relationships that cannot easily be resolved because neither side understands the underlying nature of the problem. And before we go any further, let this be understood, that just because you do not think things should be a certain way does not mean they are not that way. The version of "fairness" that each individual holds in mind is based on a limited view of universal principle. None of us hold a complete view of the nature of the universe. Therefore, we truly need to keep our version of fairness in abeyance, and be more receptive to what we see around us.

Yang is more intellectual, yin is more emotional. Yang is spirit, yin is matter. The conscious mind in both males and females is more intellectual, the subconscious mind, male or female, is more emotional. However, women are a little more in touch with the subconscious than men are. Society has trained the subconscious out of our awareness for both male and female, but more male than female. Women are a little more in touch with their feeling nature. This can be of great service to them because they can feel when things are wrong. Women feel it, men look for the clues. Both ways work, but in some cases feeling works better, in others, the clues work better.

Why is this important? Well, because it keeps us from understanding each other. Women, being more in tune with their emotions, tend to get caught up in their emotions more than men do. This can be a great advantage in many ways, but it can also be a disadvantage if we get overly caught up in emotional drama. It seems to men often that women wish to just wallow in their emotions without being willing to do anything about it. It is almost as if they "love" their drama. Women feel that men do not validate their emotions. In not validating their emotions, women feel, and correct me if I am wrong women, or at least put it in a slightly different light, for I am not female, and therefore cannot truly speak for females, that we men are not validating them as persons. To men, this doesn't even make sense. To them, there needs to be a solution to an emotional feeling and they will search logically for an answer to that feeling. They will give a solution. Women often do not like this. To them it lacks validation, and to men, the emotion lacks logical analysis. Men do feel emotion. But to them, emotion is just something that "gets in the way." It slows down their logical processes so they are not comfortable with it. When they do feel comfortable with it, they consider it their own private little domain that no one else has the right to see. It is personal and private. Therefore, they are not comfortable sharing emotions with each other. As such, sports and similar activities become very important to them as it gives them something to discuss with each other without divulging their feelings, except of course, for the outcome of the game. Men lose respect very quickly for another man who shows any form of personal emotion, and will likely just say, "Sounds like a personal problem, I don't want to hear it." Men expect every person to be responsible for themselves, and not burden others with personal feelings. Men are competitors. Women are cooperative. Men bond with other men by going through tough times and finding solutions to those problems. Women bond with each other by sharing emotional states of being and feelings. To men women seem like drama queens who just exult in carrying emotions to the extreme. To women, men seem like emotional cowards who are too afraid to show their emotions. And next time, I promise to discuss how this is a misunderstanding of the male position, and how to understand it better. Men need to understand the female position much better too. Although both sexes need to understand too that neither sex is going to ultimately understand the other no matter how much discussion is given because we are different, and can never fully understand those differences and just live with it.

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