Harmonious Multivalence

Transcript

I’d like to talk to you about the idea of harmonious multivalence. I tried to think of a way to phrase this in a way that isn’t just latin roots, so verbose, try and phrase it in a way, more English. I couldn’t think of a way, but harmonious multivalence is the only thing I came up with.

I don’t think I’ve talked about this concept before in this podcast. This is something I have mentioned in a Facebook live video. Perhaps 2 or 3 years ago and this is the concept. Something like, a lot of the time, lets break down the cultural assumptions or emotional and mental assumptions that we have.

A lot of the time we have this conception of mood and emotions, something like we feel one emotion at once. For example if you feel happy you can’t feel sad. If you are satisfied you can’t feel dissatisfied. I don’t think that is true.

And we do have some certain cultural evidence here in the form of the word ambivalent. I know a lot of people take the word ambivalent to meant indifferent which is not entirely true. The word ambivalent means of two valences, perhaps of both opposites. Like ambidextrous means a person who is dextrous with both hands.

We say ambivalent so perhaps too opposing emotions at once.

That is what it means to be ambivalent. When we take this word that I invented, or adopted for this purpose, multivalence.

I’m saying that a person can feel not just two opposing emotions, perhaps multiple emotions at once, perhaps all agreeable emotions.

Harmonious Multivalence because I am describing two or three emotions that because of they way they are constructed, or the way they are juxtaposed or combined they create something harmonious which perhaps wasn’t previously harmonious.

When we hear a symphony, we might take certain phrases of the symphony and look into it and say that’s quite discorded, like the words from West Side Story or some other show from Bernstien, we might say that’s quite discordant or it sounds bad.

Or if we listen to a blues record we listen to the phrase or few bars and think it sounds ugly. It doesn’t sound right. But when you listen to it in the context of the song, the solo, the entire album you start to get a better idea of what is going on there and what they’re actually implying with those notes. Somehow when it comes together, when its placed into a different context, those notes or phrases start to take on new meaning and appear beautiful and pleasant.

Likewise with our emotions.

Right now I am experiencing something like heart break or heart ache. I don’t know why I am experiencing this but I have some theories. As an aside the principle of emotional responsibility, we don’t know how we have received our emotions. Perhaps we are receiving them as a result of empathy for others or perhaps they are being dumped on us, like people give them and we don’t ask for them.

Or we justly feel these emotions as a result of our actions, things we did or said to others or things we thought.

It doesn’t matter the cause, what matters is what we do with it.

It’s not up to us to determine what we receive in life but when we do receive it that is our responsibility or opportunity to make sense of it or do something lovely with it. Something sensible, practical, perhaps even beautiful.

So, just riding the bike home from the cafe. I was just sitting and riding, one of my favorite things to do in the world and explore myself and my inner world and put it out on a page to see it in a different way to see what is going on and gain wisdom in the process.

As I am riding home I am still feeling this heartbreak or pain but I am also experiencing elation and joy. The man on the corner selling his tejuino on his stand based on a motorcycle and all these wonderful things that I see and notice. Thank the sweet lord that I am here in Mexico where things are strange and wonderful.

Of course I am in some sense applying these concepts to the pain that I feel. If I do feel pain it is an opportunity to decide what it means. Perhaps it means something wonderful.

I wrote in this instagram post the other day, I said: The other companion of pain must be tenderness because we only ever hurt for those things that are dear to us. So is this pain or tenderness? Likely it’s both. We can be aware that we are in pain and that we are aware of something true to us. Something meaningful to us.

So that’s the question, when we experience something that on it’s surface is uncomfortable or adverse, is there a way we can feel another emotion, another feeling which puts it in a different context perhaps surrounding the pain with that feeling.

Is there a way we can think about the pain which gives a different perspective which helps us see. I forgot the lyric but there’s a lyric in one of my friend Flo Perlin’s songs, which says something about this sweet or beautiful pain.

Can we feel it that way if we think about it a certain way? Or perhaps there’s even some flavor of consciousness, some level of awareness that helps us see our sadness in a shining light. Something sweet.

Something that is a blessing. Thank you for taking the time to look inside and wondering if our experiences that at first our instinct is to see them as bad to explore ways of thinking about it and feeling about it and viewing it and being aware of it to see that maybe it means something quite different.