Synthesis and Integration

For most of my life there has been a dialog inside my head - more of a dialectic, really (A.K.A. a nasty argument) - between two voices. My "self-talk" has been a fight, a bicker, a snarlfest. Who or what ARE these voices? I suppose they are aspects of my personality - either internalized or inborn - or perhaps the argument itself is an internalized reflection of how I saw the world as a small boy.

I have given voice to this running argument, over the years, in poems or stories, and once, memorably, as a warm-up exercise for writing poetry in which the bickering was particularly vicious. A few days ago, I engaged in an exercise involving a discussion between my young self and my adult self, which was the latest in the series - except this time there was a significant difference.

As Hegel wrote, thesis and antithesis can resolve into synthesis - a new concept built from complementary and/or common elements of both previously antagonistic positions. This was the difference in my work of dialog between my two selves: the adult self proposed a synthesis, and the young self accepted it.

The way this was done is not important, but what has stayed with me is the sense of integration that this negotiated agreement produced in me. It was a feeling of having a lot of energy released back into the system (i.e., me) that was previously bound up with engaging in the argument. It was also a feeling that I can only characterize as potent joy. There was a joyful release and a sense of new power gained through the integration of two formerly separate selves - two solitudes, as Hugh McLennan famously called it - that, united, could acheive more than either could separately.

I can't claim that the argument is now silenced. However, this is a very different model of resolution that I have experienced before. My "two solitudes" remain wary, in a cease-fire, but for the first time have a new option before them, and an agreement to try it.

This begins to suggest the elements of a new "action" set for my mission - that is, I create a world of healing connection by integrating (one meaning of "bringing together"), showing up, and blessing. This loses the "cutting apart" element, which I'm not happy with - so I'll keep working on it.