Black and White
A quote from the Mass Effect 2, perhaps my favorite from the entire game.
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“”It’s so much easier to see the world in black and white. But grey…”
Pause.
“I don’t know what to do with grey.”
~Garrus
I have met people, friends and strangers alike, who view the world in black and white.
“I see the facts,” they say. ”And there either is or is not.” Pragmatism, we call it. Simple, solid, certain practicality.
I suppose I can say that there is black and white in this world, that there is right and there is wrong. And I can accept, in fact, stand upon the fact that these cannot mix, that one is independent of the other. But that there are only these two, that everything we see is a two-bit rendering of cosmic and moral opposites in constant class with each other…
I am not black and white. If anything, I am as black as can be, all the way to my soul. You will not find one part of me that is not based on a problem deep down. Call it the sinful state, call it being human. The human condition, we call it. Confusing, contradicting, uncertain humanity.
If God had wanted us to see in black and white, He would have limited our eyes to such, and let us be. But He didn’t. Instead, I see color, I see shades, I see mixes, complements, contradictions, all existing in the same moment. And they all come together to paint this beautiful picture that we call life.
The lines of love mingle with strokes of pain. A spatter of happiness mingles with drops of sorrow. The heart is outlined in these things, but left empty inside.
No, if life were black and white, I would not have said the words I said that day. If love were black and white, we wouldn’t be where we are right now: together, apart, confused, uncertain.
If I were black and white, it would be simple to decide if I was worth it.
If it were all just black and white, I could handle life just fine.
But grey…
“I don’t know what to do with grey.”
