After much trial and error over the years, I now purposefully seek balanced opposition in my close friendships and romantic relationships, rather than chasing an overabundance of sameness. Usually, I root this logic in some throwaway statement like, “I mean, have you met me? One of me is plenty. In fact, one of me might be too much.”

To be fair, I am a hazardous, handful of a human who could probably stand to be told “no” a lot more than I currently am. My true reasoning, however, is that I find much more becomes possible — magic, alchemy, growth, passion, you name it — when there is some level of polar opposition at play in a personal connection.

It makes sense if you think about it. If you keep putting a bunch of people with the same ideas and same quirks and same mindsets in a room, you’re going to get just that — more of the same. No innovation, no sparks, no learning, no excitement of any kind. Just typing that out made me feel depressed.

Yet us feeble-minded little humans keep running after homogeny, don’t we? We’re living in a world where we’re enabled to create a curated echo chamber-like existence, only letting in what feels safe, and in no way challenges our current ways of thinking, our identity, or what we believe to be true about each other or the world.

There’s one big problem with this, though. We’re attempting to circumvent the natural laws of our world and the entirety of the universe by doing this.

Let’s look at how galaxies are formed to show you what I mean.

NASA / JWST

Galaxies are stupefyingly gorgeous collections of stars, gas, dust, and other universal goo, all bound together by gravity. Now, there’s the visible star stuff we’re all used to looking at, right? That's regular matter, also known as “baryonic matter.” But that alone isn’t enough to make galactic magic.

Enter stage left, dark matter. Dark matter is like the goth twin sister of baryonic matter — totally spooky, completely invisible, very mysterious … it probably also spends a lot of time listening to B sides of Nine Inch Nail’s "The Fragile." (Which, fair, the album is epic.)

Yet it is only through the unification of these totally opposing types of matter that our galaxies even exist. Dark matter acts like a skeleton for every single galaxy in our universe, and its gravity keeps all of that baryonic star stuff attached to that spooky skeletal structure.

Lest you think you're exempt somehow from the universal laws of opposition that govern galactic formation, my guy Carl Sagan has a few choice words for you: “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”

We’re also part of this circus, folks. It’s in your best interest to act accordingly. This is particularly true if you’re lazy like me, because fighting our natural craving for complementary opposition and balanced polarity in our lives is exhausting work. We can learn a lot from magnets — yes, magnets — in this way.

Magnets have two poles (north and south). Only opposite poles attract each other; like poles repel each other. If you want to prevent magnets of opposing poles from connecting with each other as they are designed to do, you have to exert enough force to keep them apart. And the closer you bring those attracting magnets to each other, the more effort it will require to keep them separated.

Fighting this attraction also puts a stress on the magnets themselves, in addition to creating potentially destructive levels of friction and heat. All the while, you’re building up a cute little stockpile of potential energy that will inevitably release as soon you realize you can’t keep those little magnetic lovebirds apart forever — so finally, you stop trying.

NASA / JWST

Opposition, polarity, contradiction … these are the real building blocks of our lives. And we see this truth play out every single day.

Want life to get easier? Do something hard. Want peace? Pick up a sword and fight the right battles. Want relief? Run at your pain. Want something to happen faster? Slow down. Want to find proof of god? Study science. Want love from someone else? Love yourself first. Want to make a dessert really sing? Throw a dash of flaky sea salt on top.

There’s a reason why sometimes two people who are “right” for each other on paper are “wrong” for each other in reality. It’s the same reason why sometimes the fact that two people are so absolutely “wrong” for each other is exactly why they’re “right.” Sometimes something only makes sense because it makes no sense at all.

“She’s the One” by The Beta Band (one of my favorite songs) perfectly illustrates this. This puppy clocks in at over eight minutes long. The first four minutes features a delightfully melodic string of lyrics that are basically utter nonsense with a chant of “she’s the one for me” quietly repeating in the background. Then right at the halfway point, there’s a pause, and the harmonizing, quirky repetition of “she’s the one for me” completely takes over.

For the remaining four-ish minutes, a symphonic wall of sparkling, euphoric sound builds and builds … and you no longer care that it doesn’t make sense. It never was supposed to, because that’s what falling in love feels like. Love quietly lets itself in the back door of your life when you're not looking. Then, one random day, you’re slapped in the face with its undeniable existence. Baffled, you look behind you and you see your love was there the whole time, taking root and flourishing out of sight.

Sensical nonsense.

Complementary contradiction.

Polar opposites that belong together, because somehow they're better together.

It's time to stop fighting what's natural, what we're built to do.

It’s just science, baby, and it’s the greatest love story ever told.

🌟 The Darkest Truths Are Your Path to Freedom

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