What lies between black and white
Black and white, out of all the shades that exist in nature, are obviously the most contrasting.
Black is the absence of light; on the other hand, white is the combination of all wavelengths of light. In the context of their figurative meaning, white represents purity and innocence, while black represents evil and death.
During christening, a baby is wrapped in a white cloth to symbolize the start of a new life free from sin, while during mourning family members wear black as it symbolizes grief and absence of life.
In art, these shades are used to emphasize elements and deepen the emotions of the subject due to their contrasting values. However, the most common idea associated with these shades is how we perceive the world with it, that the world and its people are either seen as white, which signifies goodness; or black, which signifies evil. A label our society never fails to highlight.
In all honesty, I am one of the people who sees the world in black and white. Whenever someone does me wrong, I constantly think that they are bad and do not deserve my compassion and understanding. Forgiveness is something I don’t give off easily. If someone does good things for me, I never think twice and say that they are the kind of people whom I can trust. I never really think about the reasons and intentions of their actions toward me. I always fail to see things in their shoes. This is the kind of mindset I kept for years.
As we go on with our lives, we begin to understand its complexity. We start to have a hard time categorizing each individual we come across in our life. Every choice, action, and decision has its reasons, reasons that sometimes we share, but most of the time we keep to ourselves. Though black and white are complete opposites, it’s a challenge to differentiate them when you are facing the truth from both sides.
Watching “Grey’s Anatomy” has been my pastime for the past few months. Different stories of doctors and patients have inspired me and changed the way I look at life. Out of the 435 episodes of this show, there is this one episode that changed my perspective and left a permanent mark on my soul—the episode “Sympathy For The Devil.” This episode talks about the life of a convict named William Dunn who is sentenced to death, after putting an end to the lives of five women.
A week before his execution, he was brought to the hospital after some incident in the cell. While watching the episode, hearing all the diagnoses, and learning about his condition, I said that he deserved it after all the inhumane things he had done. It’s so easy for me to say that because I never really heard his story. But villains are not born, they are created by the people around them. It turns out that when he was a kid, he was physically maltreated by his family. To escape this everyday scenario, he would hide under the sink, and in that confined area, he learned to read by staring at the detergent bottles kept there.
It made me think, what if he had done all those things because he was not in the right state of mind and it was a trauma response? I know that it will never justify his actions or make him a little less inhumane—never in a million ways. It’s so sad to think that maybe he only needed help but it is so hard to fully wrap my mind that he was nothing but wicked.
His story will not justify his wrongdoings but it shows us that a person is not solely based on what he has done—that there is no pure evil or pure goodness. Those 43 minutes and two seconds made me understand the phrase “The world is not black and white.”
It seems so easy to just fit a person into one category but knowing and understanding their reasons and intentions makes it hard and impossible. Putting yourself in their shoes and listening to the stories behind their smiles and frowns will make us realize that the shades of black and white never really exist in the world. They are only created by those who choose to keep their life in the darkness. Looking at life only in these two shades means limiting yourself from appreciating the details and palettes every human being possesses. It takes a lot of patience and understanding but everything is worth it.
As we open ourselves to the world, we’ll realize that it is not black and white but a million shades of gray.
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Sam Daniel Bacolod, 17, is a senior high school student in Negros Oriental. He writes essays during his free time and loves reading.
