The fundamental principle of the cosmos is duality. For every upswing, there is a downswing; creating oscillation/waves. For every positive charge, there is a negative charge that follows soon after to balance the offset. Every energy spike or motion the universe makes is a move away from balance, and the natural response of the environment is to counterbalance. Like water falling downstream, it is harder not to have a void be filled. Duality is not the exception, it's the norm.
Everything from the smallest particles of matter/energy to planetary bodies follow this geometrically emergent law. It's estimated that 85% of stars systems are binary, and this is because of the inherent stability and balance provided by a two-fold system. So too in the natural world, symmetry abounds and is naturally selected for because it honors the laws of reality. Nature must follow the same laws as the cosmos does, if it is to be successful. Two arms, two legs, two eyes. Plant and animal. Predator and prey. Male and female.
Our psyches emerged directly out of these same laws; the structure of our mind being a byproduct of this oscillation scaling up to unparalleled heights. From its physical hemispherical structure, to the way we process information - there is a necessary duality. Logic and ethics. Perception and Judgment. Consciousness and unconsciousness. When one psychic element is over-represented in consciousness, its opposite emerges in an unconscious form to counterbalance the offset. This creates a secondary personality trait as compensation.
Within our species there is duality as well - with certain people being of a certain temperament and others existing to counterbalance their effects. We have the rigid judgment types and the holistic perception types. We have the stoic logos types and the ethical types. Typology exists because duality is necessary for Humanity to function as a complete entity and single organism. We each fall on some side of the spectrum of this collective-scale oscillation.
You are not the only human of your nature; you belong to a global family comprised of millions of people who share your deepest essence. Even if these others seem very far away, and even if you've never met a twin soul in your life - you aren't alone. You were born as one iteration of a larger equation with redundancy built into its design. And your destiny is to represent that part of humanity that you are - to speak the truth of that voice. Indeed, you don't really have a choice in the matter, no more than a cat can pretend to be a dog. Even if you try to fight against yourself, you will fight it from the place of your nature and with the logic of your nature. But we can choose to live more or less aligned to this essence.
Your role was given to you the moment you arrived, and this role is vital to humanity because your nature represents a needed counterbalance to that of all the others. As with all of us, your destiny is to find yourself and then be that thing that you are to its fullest. To not cave into the pressure, and to not compromise yourself.
Why the world is out of balance: If everyone was their heroic self, the world would fall into balance, as we would all balance each other out. Its imbalance is proportional to how many of us are buying into an ideology that is not our own. We can only change the world from Within, by being aware of ourselves first then living out that self. Yet to change the world doesn't mean to win against your antithesis; it means balancing with them. To be the moon to their sun and exist in tension and tug-of-war with them, because as soon as your win, you've lost.
The greater forces of the world represent ideological leanings toward one side or the other of these dualities. The collective is formed from the aggregate of the individual, and our political systems are simply a broader reflection of what it means to be a single individual. What Jung referred to as the spirit of the times is the general attitude of this macro-organism we call humanity. Its temperament shifts with the generations like a pendulum's swing. From capitalist to socialist, from progressive to conservative, and from patriarchy to matriarchy.
Following the militarization of an entire generation in an age of war for power and dominance (J), the rigid discipline of the second world war was met with enantiodromia; the cultural revolution of the 1960's which was a return to the disinhibited fluidity (P) of mind and body. It was a swing away from the masculine (militant, objective, logical, orderly) to the feminine (compassionate, subjective, irrational, chaotic). A spiritual awakening began, with a return to archetypal truths and a sense of somatic interconnectedness with all animal life on the planet. Enthogens and shamanic secrets were discovered by modern man and offered a beautiful, loving and radiant alternative to the bleak threat of world destruction offered by the masculine principle of Order - which had now fallen into tyranny.
But as the human story always goes, it swung too far. Countless brilliant minds were consumed by the unforeseen effects of drug abuse, acid, and the nomadic lifestyle which lead to homelessness and decay. Half a generation was given into chaos, immaturity and petulance. The children of the 1980's - raised by single parents who failed to thrive in life - would return again to a more level headed reality.
Happening in parallel was the complete emancipation of women and African Americans. The cries of oppression were heard, and the heavy hand of the Father (patriarchy) was cast down. Women fought for equal representation as men in voting, then in the workforce and in all civil areas. Discrimination was shunned and the progressive movement sought to equalize all races and genders as being the same.
But as the human story always goes, it swung too far. Women began to marry less and leave the homes, focusing more heavily on career than on their children. Businesses were now expected to fill a quota to equalize their employee demographic so as to claim to have liberty from discrimination - rather than hiring people purely on their merit.
Every imbalanced employee population was quickly interpreted as being the result of cultural indoctrination - whether in men's higher ratio in manual labor and engineering jobs, or in women's higher ratio in nursing careers. An ignorance of genuine biological differences in the genders or races abounded, propelled forward from a need to believe that equality means uniformity. Scientific studies to the contrary were ignored, and even the concept of gender/sex was cast in question altogether; becoming a matter of choice.
Evolutionary biology now informs us that there are legitimate differences between males and females, and this causes leanings in career choices which need not suffer from suspicion of discrimination. The female sex introduces with it certain psychological proclivities which are designed to support the mother-infant relationship and these proclivities also permeate their entire lives. Indeed, we need more feminine energy in the world; of the sort that fosters compassion, nurture and sensitivity. But rather than feminism being an exaltation of true feminine qualities, it has diminished its power. Third wave feminism doesn't truly protect or represent the female soul, but seeks to remove the distinction of gender altogether from both sides of the spectrum.
Considering how easy it is to slip into ideologies which are askew, how then can we better the world? And how do we know if we're truly acting in favor of balance? Well, we can take the pulse of the planet using a spiritual compass. We cannot change the world for the better without understanding where the pendulum has swung and where it needs to be counterbalanced.
Now more than ever, the empirical reigns supreme in our minds and hearts. The reality of the psyche (I) has suffered great depreciation in the last hundred years as scientific reductionism has stripped away the validity of a deeper analysis of the psyche, and replaced it for behavioral (external) knowledge. The shamanic traditions have vanished, and so too their wisdom. We are industrious, productive, efficient, but we lack the ethical gains to go with it. Around 33%-40% of our food goes to waste, and we live in a gluttonous state where the second leading cause of death is obesity. The developed world dies of abundance while we hold a global poverty population of ~3 billion or around 50%. As articulated by professor Brené Brown:
"We are the most in debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in US history."
If humanity is ever to venture into the stars, it cannot do so unless it has learned to master itself - just as each one of us must master our own mind and heart. Were humanity in a state of balance, the world would be fully ethical while not trespassing into logical fallacies. It would fully value the subjectivity of the individual/psyche and its needs, as well as the material and the need for external order. It would notice, consider and explore the interconnectedness and interdependence in all things, while not seeing anything as supernaturally occurrent. It would guide us into the future with technological advancement, which is developed for the sake of preserving life in all its forms. It's up to us to decide whether that ever happens, and whether we embody the counterbalance the world needs us to be.
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