Grim Rhapsody

I was recently involved in a long discussion with a good friend of mine, who is also an atheist and was a major factor in my transformation from religious apathy to atheism. The fruit of the discussion was strongly related to our differing reasons for deconversion: while my friend was disgusted by the indoctrination and brainwashing that religion inspires (especially Western monotheism) and was led to recognise it for what it was, I instead approached atheism from the road of science and reason. I simply identified religion as the most prominent example of an inherently flawed thought process entailing a breakdown of critical thinking and the hypocrisy of selective skepticism. The differences in our viewpoints throughout our recent discussion arose from those different paths. After leaving theism behind, my friend was attracted to the calming benevolence of more Eastern spiritual teachings and philosophies, whereas I continued my study of science and continued applying active skepticism and scientific enquiry to everything I encountered. Meeting after a year of these branched-off roads, the collision between our evolved viewpoints was inevitable, and inspired this post, which will clarify why the scientific method is the only legitimate means to establish the existence of any relationship in the observable universe. At the end, I will include examples from our discussion which highlight where that method breaks down.

First, I should state that my friend and I still share common ground on many matters. His ideas frequently display a fascination with the workings of the human brain, which I also possess; however, his ideas lie in the realm of philosophy, whereas I focus only on psychological phenomena that can be demonstrated scientifically. If an idea cannot be tested, then it can exist only as a philosophical question. I have often insisted that we must always apply skepticism to things we hear or observe – were we to believe anything, we would quickly suffer. Everyone knows this, and believes it to be true about most things. They just find it difficult to apply it retroactively, to their pre-existing beliefs.

Like skepticism, science is universal. If a relationship exists – for example, if being born in a certain month determines one’s personality – a scientific enquiry will find it. This is something that people often fail to understand. A correlational study would look at a wide range of randomly selected people, examining their personalities and comparing this to each person’s “star sign”. If there is a significant pattern – that is, if the probability of an actual effect is much larger than the probability of it occurring due to chance (something calculated statistically) – then the enquiry will inevitably detect it. In this case, there have been a plethora of studies investigating astrology and no relationship has been detected. Obviously, no one can spare the time to scientifically investigate every single claim, and this is where skepticism comes in. Considering that constellations are arbitrarily created by humans, that every astrologist will predict something different (and ludicrously vague) based on them, and that the idea conflicts with well-established physical laws, one’s threshold of skepticism does not need to be immensely high to toss the idea out on principle. It is only the disturbingly large number of its subscribers and its prevalence throughout ancient history that makes astrology worthy of a scientist’s time. Again, I reiterate: if there is a relationship – that is, if something is at play other than random chance – a proper scientific enquiry cannot fail to detect it.

If a proper scientific investigation does not detect a relationship, then there are only two possibilities. Either the relationship does not exist, or the investigation needs to be improved. While the latter occurence is rare, it is nevertheless claimed disproportionately often by subscribers to unjustified ideologies, usually in an attack on the experiment’s validity. Validity is how well-equipped the actual investigation is to detect the relationship it is attempting to detect. Since investigations use samples to extrapolate results to a population, it is important that this sample is representative – “investigations” carried out by pseudoscientists frequently fail at this first hurdle (for example, testing homeopathic remedies on  fifty people who already strongly believe in homeopathy). Validity is also more obviously relevant in the choice of variables, if the investigation is an experiment rather than just a correlational study. If your hypothesis is “Prayer to the Christian God can influence an outcome”, your independent variable would be whether or not a group prayed, and the dependent variable you would go on to examine would be how often the prayed-for outcome occurred for each group. If no relationship was detected, a believer might claim that it didn’t work because the people praying were not clutching a crucifix. In that case, the variables were not valid – but one finds that believers do not point these things out until after the experiment, and only if it fails to support their already-held views. In any case, this constant adding of conditions can continue indefinitely until the supposed requirements for the prayer’s success are ludicrously specific – hence validity actually decreases, as the results of the investigation can no longer be applied across any reasonable population. Validity in experiments is also boosted by methods such as double-blind experiments (which rule out possible placebo effects) and randomized control trials (which assist in eliminating unwanted variables).

Other ways to improve an investigation are increasing reliability and power. Reliability, as I have already alluded to, is simply the probability that the effect was due to a causal relationship rather than chance. It is much easier to improve – simply repeat the experiment. If you get the same results, then those results are more reliable. If the results fluctuate every time the investigation is conducted, then they are not reliable. In a similar vein, power is the investigation’s actual ability to detect an effect, and usually refers to the size of the sample being investigated. Increasing power increases your chances of finding a real relationship. However, this is just as double-edged as it sounds, because if power is increased sufficiently, some sort of tiny relationship will always be found, though it may be irrelevant to the investigation. Essentially, if you look hard enough, you will find something, though it will be so miniscule that it is useless and completely irrelevant to any single individual. As a famous example, studies have detected a correlation between height and intelligence – but height is responsible for something on the order of 4% of the variation in intelligence. While validity can never be too high (within reasonable effort), power most certainly can. In the case of supernatural claims, this is rarely a problem as the relationships are usually completely non-existent, but let us imagine for a moment that the aforementioned astrology study was expanded to a sample size of 100,000 randomly selected people, and an extremely small correlation between being born in winter and having a quieter personality was found. “Star sign” is hardly the most rational explanation for this, and in any case, the relationship would be so small that you could not conclude anything about one particular person who was born in winter.

Once more, I will say it: a proper scientific enquiry cannot fail to detect a real relationship. I repeated it because we are going to move into the realm of phenomena that science cannot detect. Claims of phenomena that cannot be detected are commonly referred to by scientists as non-falsifiable. Supernatural phenomena that do not begin in this realm always end up being pushed back into it by believers who refuse to interpret an investigation’s failure to detect something as evidence of its non-existence. I use the image of a “realm” with caution, because it is also effectively the “realm” of things that do not exist. If science cannot detect something, then a human most definitely cannot, and we should not even bother considering its existence. Investigations into the existence of ghosts always fail because the ghosts eventually gain characteristics such as “invisible” and “immaterial” until they can’t interact with the physical world at all and are equivalent to something that does not exist within our senses or the detecting ability of any device in existence. Deistic non-interventional gods also fall into this category by default; numerous other things like “paranormal” abilities always end up there. The essence of the matter is: if science cannot detect it, then no one and nothing can distinguish it from something that does not exist.

I commonly hear responses to this such as “My god lies in a different, non-physical realm”, but this just shifts the problem, because this “non-physical realm” is just as non-falsifiable and undetectable as anything supposedly contained within it, and both it and its occupants may as well not exist. Even claims such as “My god used to intervene in the physical world, but has now retreated to his own realm” can never ultimately be falsified, though the evidence we do have about this supposed “age of intervening gods” can be examined (note that this is not a scientific procedure, merely the much more fundamental processes of skepticism and reason). Proponents of “non-overlapping magisteria”, who claim that the scientific method and faith are just different foundations for “different sorts of beliefs” also fail to recognise this. Reason leads to conclusions based on evidence, by its definition. Faith leads to conclusions not based on evidence, by its definition. We do not need to make sappy concessions that both are equally legitimate, because they very obviously are not. Faith cannot possibly help us decide which of the literally endless beliefs not based on evidence are correct – it is the fallacious double-standard of selective skepticism that allows this.

Faith does not necessarily relate to theism, and this was one of the major points of the discussion I shared with my friend, who went so far as to use the term “scientific faith”. My friend is very willing to believe things that “feel right”, like the holistic eastern teachings to which he subscribes, yet he accepts that the human brain is only as good at perceiving reality as was necessary for survival on Earth before higher brain functions such as self-awareness were naturally selected. I would be perfectly willing to accept that practices such as acupuncture, chi kung and chakra healing could improve health beyond the influence of a basic placebo or calming effect, but they must jump through the same scientific hoops as every other idea before I lower my skepticism gate, and this is an important point. There are no exceptions to skepticism, no absolute truths about the universe that every person is born with locked away in their heads. Most people believe they hold the absolute truth, and so this obviously cannot be considered a factor in deciding who to believe. My friend also leapt to many “natural” conclusions about the human brain and the entire universe, based on things that are “obvious to anyone”, many of which conflicted with the lifetimes of research conducted across numerous areas, including cosmology, biology and even mathematics.

To me, this idea that one person can simply gain a sudden understanding of the universe without taking much more than a glance at (and even in complete opposition of) the work of thousands of other sincere thinkers across hundreds of years, let alone conduct any serious scientific research of their own, approaches nothing short of arrogance. I see this depressingly often – rather than show a sense of genuine curiosity and compare their own ideas to the scientific enquiries of thinkers past, these steadfast subscribers instead go through life believing that through some sense of faith, or “higher sense of being”, they can uncover any truth that they wish with a few hours’ thought. This holds as true for Eastern practices as it does for anything else – subscribers limit their search of knowledge only to sources they know to agree with their pre-subscribed belief system. (And it’s just icing on the cake of irony when these people utter the words “You need to be more open-minded.”)

My studies of psychology have revealed wondrously fascinating facets of the human mind and the behaviours it entails – uncovered, debated, and tested by countless dedicated thinkers worldwide over the course of the last hundred years. We no longer need to ascribe to such broad, unsubstantiated vitalistic concepts as “energy”, or “karma”, or “divine intervention” in our efforts to explain what we see and why we see it. The scientific method assists in eliminating the flaws of the human brain as factors in deciding what is real and what is not; our need to attribute things to cause, our need to seek only confirmation of our beliefs and ignore conflicting evidence, our need to insist that our perception and memories are infallible.

Why seek out psychics and fortune-tellers to predict the future when psychology can predict human behaviour far more reliably (something “psychics” know perfectly well)? Why believe ancient Mayan calendars have predicted the apocalypse when physics can predict the motion of celestial objects thousands of times larger than our planet to within a fraction of a millimetre? Why resort to deliriously vague, impossible-to-fail concepts such as “natural balance” when mathematical game theory can actually predict patterns of behaviour in animals? Why believe mythical, dusty books’ accounts of creation when biology has demonstrated the incredible ability of evolution to explain life as we see it in our insignificant time on Earth? Why leave your life in the hands of useless homeopathic remedies and “energy healing techniques” when chemistry, biology and neurology have united to provide medicines that save millions upon millions of lives every year?

And this is the last thing I wish to discuss: health. Of all the human attitudes and behaviours that belief systems inspire, it is those relating to health and wellbeing that are of most significance, because this is where they do the most literal physical damage. I imagine that my readers will not need reminding of the horrors medical doctors go through every year when Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse treatment and – more disgustingly – refuse it for their children. Parents of children who have died from lack of treatment have been let off extremely light in the US, facing “criminal negligence” charges rather than the more substantiated murder charge, simply due to their fatal actions being religiously inspired. Here, I wish to talk about the “alternative medicine” practised by subscribers to “new age” and Eastern philosophies.

I should state that these divisions of “Western” and “Eastern”, “conventional” and “traditional”, etc. are blatantly meaningless, giving no indication of actual remedial ability. These terms reveal only the (very historical) geographical locations where the respective methods have practised, and how widely accepted the methods are. A much more fitting division would be “scientific” and “pre-scientific”, which clearly indicates which treatments have been rigorously and scientifically validated and which treatments were simply ancient guesswork refined into tradition through natural selection – two categories that are not equally legitimate. Treatments that were observed to work rather than scientifically proven were passed on, and those not observed to work were (eventually) disused – vague guesses at why these treatments appeared to work could then be postulated (“chakras”, “vital energy”, even “demons”) based on pre-scientific false understanding of nature and the human body. For the most part, these treatments appear to work only because they do nothing at all. For example, the body’s immune system is perfectly capable of fending off the common cold virus, and relaxation (which seems to be the major part of most “traditional Eastern treatments”) will naturally assist this. There is no need to invoke an explanation like “energy is allowed to flow” – this energy is as unreal and ultimately pointless as the alien souls (“thetan” is the proper term) of Scientology. When these practitioners learn of documented biological phenomena such as homeostasis, they are often quick to leap to claims that this is exactly what they meant by “energy” – apparently just with none of the predictive ability of homeostatic imbalance or roots in physical phenomena.

Obviously, these sorts of treatments are not actively harmful. Being relaxed and calm is a well-documented boon when recovering from illness, which is why doctors recommend bed rest and inactivity. If one feels that rituals such as meditation are a more effective method of relaxation, then so be it – but there is no need to create ethereal concepts or invoke mystical causes to explain this. Perfectly tangible, biological reasons already exist. If one wants to actually learn more about the human body, and perhaps even assist in hypothesising and testing new treatments, then “conventional Western medicine” is the place to do it. Granted, there are flaws in health systems and infrastructures, but this is true of anywhere, and needs to be addressed rather than avoided. To nurture contempt of these flaws into a misled opposition to scientific medicine to the point where one actively forgoes it is a dangerous and possibly fatal delirium. Repeating anecdotes and relentlessly professing “______ really works!” is not a convincing argument, nor is it legitimate at all in light of the unreliability of individual experience. Anyone who resorts to stories rather than research in their claim of truthfulness fails to understand the most basic rule of skepticism: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. For further reading, I suggest Science-Based Medicine, a wonderful scientific blog. Of particular interest is its response to a letter from a reader who criticises the “Eurocentricism” of scientific medicine.

Science is self-deprecating, self-improving and universal – a construct more reliable at discerning reality than any single human mind. It holds nothing sacred, gives no worth to the labels “tradition” and “convention”, and most important does not stray beyond its boundaries, which is less than can be said of human imagination. It is nonsensical to oppose it, and ludicrous to fear it, for it can only ever find the truth, and I for one will embrace that goal as long as I live.

All the colors’ philosophies seem to dwell on creating the perfect world, at least the perfect world as they see it. The irony is that the perfect world is already here. Just take a moment to step back and look at nature. It is horribly complex yet surprisingly simple. It is harsh yet gentle. It’s functional yet beautiful. Nature is an odd mix of opposites living in harmony. And it sits right here under our noses.

To what end should the leaves on the branches of a tree attempt to change the tree itself? How can an engine tinkered with throughout a century of human industry possibly subvert a global, and perhaps even cosmic, engine perfected over billions of years? For how long can we blunder along, thinking ourselves the ultimate pinnacle and purpose of this cosmic engine, advancing in technology at a vastly accelerated rate while not understanding the weapons we wield, before a machine misfires and the leaves fall scorched to the ground?

Those are the questions Green puts forward. If you have no idea who or what Green is, I advise you strongly to read my article ‘The Stirring Shadow‘ and the series’ second part, ‘Damn the Consequences‘ to discover my thoughts on applying the philosophy of colors of Magic: the Gathering to the real world. As for here, I won’t waste any time before diving into the forest of the universe.

Green, essentially, can be best summed up by its unique viewpoint on change: while the other four colors are busying themselves trying to change the world, Green sees no need. Every organism, every drop of water, every planet – everything carries a purpose refined over billions of years since the beginning of the universe. We are all pieces in a cosmic puzzle – and the mere fact that we evolved self-awareness mere millenia ago does not give us free reign to change this ancient universe as we see fit. Every step towards a rigid, artificially-changed world is a step away from the rhythmic balance that our species was born into. We are gifted, yes, but our intelligence also blinds us to the fact that we are still only marginally different from the other animals we live alongside, and makes us too sure of ourselves. Were we to obliterate ourselves in nuclear war next week, we would be replaced by nature without a moment’s pause, and the universe at large would feel not a ripple. But at the same time, nature has given us a place here and now, and we should not waste time and energy on making bigger televisions and faster cars when we should be improving ourselves as individuals and, more importantly, as a whole.

No piece of the puzzle can amount to much by itself on the scale of the universe. Aside from water, plants are our single most vital resource, and other animals follow just behind it. However, each piece does have a role – a way to best fit into the puzzle – with which we are born, and rather than struggling to make our individual roles more important than others’, we should each discover the role we were destined for, and make as great a contribution as we can to our community, our species, our planet, our universe. After embracing this philosophy, says Green, and learning the patience to find our place, we would quickly realise that we had been wandering blind in an already perfect world driven by an ancient engine able to resolve every problem that has ever existed.

It is easy to become very emotional when describing a green outlook – moreso than Red, I find, the other color focused on emotion. Note that “emotional” does not mean crying, as contemporary casual usage of the term would imply, but simply feeling what one is writing, and that in itself is green more than anything itself. Green holds the view that we have evolved feelings for a reason, and we should follow them rather than question why millions of years of natural selection would grant them to us today. Green is also the color that we are made to feel guilty for lacking – growing environmental, social and technological concerns in modern society are Green-driven – but at the same time, that fact that one can be made to feel guilty about such issues implies a green conscience under the surface. No color can remind us of our miniscule place in the universe like Green can, and it is this aspect of Green that I appreciate most.

On the flipside, it is easy to misconstrue Green’s inherent spirituality into something like organised religion, which I would identify as the result of a crossover between Green and White. Eastern religions are extremely Green (as are the Jedi of Star Wars), and these religions I have little conflict with. However, extreme personifications of “nature” as a human-like entity or “god” have deviated into the Abrahamic western religions doing so much widespread and personal harm. These organisations have lost sight of Green’s true philosophy, if they ever had it in the past, and I will focus more on them in my White article. As for Green, I interpret it as containing no claims of supernatural forces as depicted in western culture, but rather possessing a reverence for nature, far closer to Buddhism and elements of Hinduism. Influences of these holistic cultures have drifted into the west in recent times, but sadly the length of time the west has been separated from Green results in few people actually achieving close to a full understanding of practices such as meditation. A stronger failure to understand Green can be seen in the mysticism of “new age” spirituality, which essentially consists of genuine, Green-seeking people being exploited by conspicuously Green-lacking con artists such as psychics and astrologists.

While Eastern religions do have practices and beliefs that would be immediately cast off as “pseudoscience” by a staunch supporter of Blue, it is important to realise that there is little comparison with Western equivalents like astrology. Green practices do not originate from a bottom-up study of the brain, like blue practices, but have evolved over thousands of years – practices like meditation still exist simply because they achieve a purpose that Green considers important. Just as “amoral” is a word applied to but not recognised by Black, “primitive” is a concept applied to rather than by Green, usually to imply some lack of advanced cognitive processes. The Australian Aborigines lived in balance with the rest of their world, observing the natural cycles and passing down traditions that proved effective over tens of thousands of years. The blue/black among us may look back at their existence with condescension, but perhaps the Aborigines would have in turn looked upon them with disbelief, and wondering how long before their separation from their world and their own destinies caused their end.

On that note, I now move on to the incongruence of Green and Black, the first example of an enemy-aligned color pair I have considered. To be enemy colors is not to say that the two are the antitheses of one another, for each color actually has two enemies, and all enemies still share some unique similarities. In this case of Green and Black, they reach common ground on perhaps one point: the world is harsh. Beyond that, however, the colors’ philosophies differ as one would expect. Green views the harshness of the world simply as a result of failing to “bend against the wind”, as the proverb goes. If one understands their place in the world, the idea of it being harsh quickly fades into the realisation that we are all just different molecular forms of the same basic elements, and these forms are constantly shifting, devouring and spawning one another in endless cycles. Black, on the other hand, accepts the harshness of the world as a fundamental fact, and believes that it serves to illuminate who has the ability and willingness to survive, and who does not – as different a take on evolution from Green as one can get. Black views the development of consciousness as a potent opportunity for domination, and sees the world as a pool of limited resources rather than Green’s idea of an intricate puzzle-piece engine. Black would never oppose technological advancement or change of any kind, if it served to further one’s own ability to survive, and is the very opposite of the worldwide interdependence emphasised by Green. Black also subverts cycles at its leisure if it means even the slightest profit for itself – bringing about premature death being a significant example.

Red is an allied color to both Green and Black, meaning it shares numerous philosophy characteristics with each. In the case of Red and Green, both are wild and instinctual, and emphasise feelings over thoughts, instincts over innovations. As animals, we evolved instincts and emotions far before we developed self-awareness, and for that reason it makes more sense to follow their lead rather than overthinking things and stepping beyond our boundaries as creatures of natures. Red and Green both recognise that the world is chaotic, beyond our control, and that we possess a bond from just being, rather than thinking. No two colors are exactly the same, however, and Red and Green have their share of differences – Red is closer to Black in its value of the self over all else, as opposed to Green’s dynamic, interdependent, fluidly structured ecosystems. One can also imagine the differences between Red and the green example I gave of Eastern religions, which very often emphasise that obeying every emotional impulse that comes into your head and giving in to base desires is detrimental to self development. Green’s cosmic engine could not function if every piece did whatever it wanted, and at the same time, Red’s very individualistic pieces do not want to be told how to function, but will leap from role to role as they please.

Green is often a misunderstood color, and to me that is a shame. Scientific pursuits and cold objective thought have taught us to ignore instincts and instead employ different techniques to fit into a world very alien from the one that green philosophies envision, and in terms of efficiency, these dismissals are validated – there are so many subversions of green beliefs around, especially in western culture, that it would be a waste of time and energy for Blue to dig up the few genuinely green practices. When it comes down to it, I carry the belief that beneath even the most analytical viewpoint lies a hint of Green and a seed of a belief that were everyone Green, the world would be a lot simpler and happier. In the next instalment, which I have long been looking forward to talking about, I’ll be looking at what our society is rather than what it might hope to be. Join me then as I delve into the human need for structure, for pride, and for doing what is right.

In the meantime, take a moment or two to consider that maybe everything you own is more than anything you need.

Often, we make rash decisions. We make choices in emotionally-charged situations that we would not make were we to sit and think about it. I remember once reading that the only way to fully enjoy life is to live utterly in the present – to discard all thought of past experience and future consequence. Whoever wrote that was, without a doubt, immersed in the philosophy of Red.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about and are wondering who Red is, I suggest you read my post from six months ago, where I talked about how I’ve started thinking of people’s philosophies in terms of the five colors of the card game Magic. I wrote that post with the explicit purpose of writing down all the aspects of each color of my own outlook, starting with Black, and that’s still my overarching goal, but I’ve decided to use my own philosophy more as an example of how Magic’s colors apply to our real lives rather than the series’ focus.

Before we stop – or rather, sprint – and plunge headfirst into the red zone, note that from this point onward, at the end of each color’s post, I’ll be talking about the relationship between that color and the colors I’ve written about previously. Today, that means only the affinity between red and black, but expect these posts to grow in size from here on.

Damn the Consequences

I believe in being true to who you are. I believe in following your gut. I believe in not letting others stand in your way. I believe in doing what feels right.

That’s how Red would describe itself. The concept of Red describing itself could be paradoxical to some; a red person is often stereotyped as unintelligent, reckless, perhaps even slightly insane, and will rarely string together a relevant sentence. In this, Red is misunderstood. Last time I wrote about how we view the blacker fragments of our personalities – rarely do we consciously hide our deeply private and frequently brutal beliefs. More often, we forget they even exist when having fun or in social situations. Red, on the other hand, is the side that we love to hate. Every time we regret a hasty decision, wish we hadn’t followed an emotional impulse, groan about a drunken mistake – that’s our non-red parts hating our red part. If we were all completely red, there’d be no regret. More likely, there’d be a longing to continue feeling the surge of euphoria that briefly accompanies all those moments. While the rest of our mind is thinking about the consequences, Red is only interested in the present.

What happens when everyone follows their emotions, and only do what they feel is right for them? You get anarchy. No one is willing to step down and let someone else govern what they can and can’t do, and so conflict arises, usually of the violent sort. A red person doesn’t only act on whims, but believes that acting on what you feel is an inherent part of human nature. Anger, love, satisfaction – Red would tell you these are all vital parts of human experience, because we only ever experience life from our own point of view, and nothing trumps that. You only ever know what you feel. Anyone who tries to take that away must be forcefully stopped, and this is the essence of chaos.

Talking about one’s red side is often more personal than coldly observing the semantics of blue thought and the immoveable determination of white objectives. Most of the time, when we intimate red moments to one another, they’re accompanied by embarrassment, and we’re usually seeking advice on how to reverse the consequences. Yet contemporary society is becoming increasingly red, demonstrated aptly by the roaring nightlife, party culture and drug abuse prevalent in the news every day. Not that Red is inherently opposed to quietness: a red person would  be the first to tell you to relax and take a break if you were stressed about a work project, and also the most likely to encourage you to confront problems directly. In short, Red is about short-term, unabashed self-satisfaction, and is simultaneously praised and demonised for being such. I’m sure everyone knows someone who constantly complains about how human society revolves around “instant gratification”, yet that same person will read “Body and Soul” magazines because, in their words, “it’s important to meet your personal and emotional needs”. The only difference Red sees between these two things is that the former contains the word “instant”, which as Red will tell you, is a very attractive word.

My experience with Red will be similar to anyone else’s: in the heat of a moment, I have made decisions that I would not have made under different, more relaxed circumstances. Most of these decisions, I have regretted. Most of those, I have been able to remedy. The rest, I have been forced to move past. In the end, though, I would have to say that I am far less red than the vast majority of people, and there’s a strong possibility it is my “weakest” color (that is, the color least responsible for my “color wheel make-up”). However, as I outlined in The Stirring Shadow, I don’t believe anyone is completely devoid of the influences of any color. I share Red’s intolerance of restriction, and believe dealing with emotional problems is far healthier than sweeping them under the rug. Note that I said dealing with emotions, and not blindly satisfying every feeling of desire, lust, anger, revenge, and so forth. It is this destructive, mindless side of Red that I am most at odds with, and this is the part of Red that Black also dislikes.

Black and Red are “allied” colors; that is, they are adjacent in the color wheel and have overlap between their philosophies. Where Black and Red most overlap is in their the belief in the all-importance of the self; for Black, it is the survival of the self, and for Red, it is the satisfaction. Both colors share a common enemy in White, the incarnation of law and order, absolute morality, and the well-being of the group. So, we can postulate the basic characteristics of someone with strong roots in Black/Red: they live utterly for themselves, have no rules and no reservations, and no belief in right and wrong. In short, you end up with hedonism; at its most extreme, you end up with someone who will kill to survive and kill for pleasure. Granted, that extreme is thankfully rare in the real world, but just consider someone you may know who lies frequently, sometimes to further their own gains and sometimes, for no discernable reason at all. Fans of 2008’s The Dark Knight will probably have no trouble in accepting my word that The Joker is the epitome of fictional Black/Red characters.

It’s fitting that this post should be delayed for so long simply because I didn’t have the motivation to write it and therefore, did not. Hopefully the next instalment isn’t similarly delayed. Join me then when I talk about answers that lie within, the appeal of returning to nature, and the idea that we are all pieces in a grand, complex puzzle.

Until then, remember that playing with fire might leave you singed.

Are things only simple if you limit your exploration of them? Is every person a complex, multifaceted being? Is this balance between simplicity and complexity simple, or complex?

Recently I started seeing people as colors. Not hallucinogenic colors. Colors of the trading card game, Magic: the Gathering. Each of the game’s five colors has a different philosophy. The color wheel is aligned so as to create common ground and conflict between these five philosophies. When I first started playing the game, the colors were simple concepts. White is ordered. Blue is curious. Black is selfish. Red is chaotic. Green is natural. Even if you’ve never played or perhaps even heard of Magic, the concept is basic enough.

But when I started categorising people as a certain color or combination of colors, things started to grow more complex. Some are very easy to place; others take more thought. As time went on, I started wondering if it was even possible to define every individual’s philosophy in terms of these five colors, or if anyone was truly devoid of a particular color. Then I wondered if it was correct to create such boundaries; if I classified a friend as blue/white, does that mean they lack all traits of green, red and black altogether? Surely no one has such clear-cut beliefs. I eventually decided that while all colors will be present in some way in every person, nearly everyone has one or two major defining colors, and in all my categorisation so far, this has proved true.

Then, finally, I asked that inevitable question: what colors am I?

I have not yet been able to answer that question. My favourite colors within the game are blue, black and red. Should this directly align with who I am as a person? Most players I know of do share some major personality traits with the colors they most enjoy playing, but never has it aligned precisely.

Yet the more I considered the question, the more impossible it became to answer. I have, at one point or another, seen parts of all five colors within myself. Perhaps my colors are very obvious to my friends – certainly I rarely have trouble placing them. Most of the time, I imagine that they would see me as primarily blue and secondarily white. But is that really me? There are many aspects of white I dislike.

Obviously, the vast majority of people will not have a thorough understanding of Magic’s colors. Neither can I pursue this question any further on my own. Recently while listening to two of my most like-minded friends discussing their beliefs, I realised that while I understood exactly what each of them meant with every word, I didn’t have any personal opinion on any of it. I cannot recall ever feeling so impartial to such deep-rooted philosophies. One of those friends was utterly blue, perhaps with traces of white and black. The other was nearly entirely green. The major conflict between their viewpoints exactly matched the traditional conflict between those two colors. I won’t go into details, for those who don’t understand that conflict, but after this series, perhaps you will understand better and perhaps I will understand myself better.

Yes, a series of posts. I already mentioned that I recognise traits of all five colors within me. By writing them down, by having them read, I hope to figure out exactly what my beliefs are, because at the moment I feel like I have none at all. So, five posts, one on each color and how it relates to me. I decided I would do black first, because it confuses me the most. Sometimes, deep down, I feel very black; brutally honest thoughts that never rise to vocalisation. Obviously, they are the type of thoughts that are not heard by friends, just as black is the color that has none. If you knew someone who was easy to identifty as black, chances are slim that they would be a close friend. That’s why I want to get it out of the way. (Please note that at no point in this series am I referring to skin color or anything beyond the colors philosophies in Magic.)

The Stirring Shadow

My philosophy is simple: You have to learn to adapt to the world the way it is, not the way you want it to be. I accept that people are selfish. My philosophy takes this as a given. We can sit and moan about how it isn’t fair, or we can take steps to give ourselves the best chance to thrive within this environment.

From the words of the color Black itself, “interviewed” by Magic designer Mark Rosewater as part of a series. It’s this series that originally caused me to begin looking at people through the lens of the color wheel, so I’ll be quoting from it fairly often.

Black, to summise in several words, looks out for itself. In its purest form, it shuns hierarchy, it shuns morality, it shuns law and order. Black believes that humans are inherently selfish, and that to believe otherwise is self-delusion. Black has a very nihilistic outlook on existence. There is nothing beyond what you strive to create for yourself, and you cannot trust others to create it for you. You can never fully trust others, period. Black believes that capitalism is the only working form of government: to give each individual the opportunity and the motivation to build themselves up, in the form of materalistic reward. It’s up to each individual to put in the effort and be rewarded in return. No teamwork, no one enforcing their beliefs upon anyone else. Violence must be used as necessary in one’s own pursuit of power. Some attribute Black with the the quality of “evil”, but Black does not recognise such concepts, which require the necessity of absolute truths in their definitions.

It’s easy to see where my more prominent black beliefs come from. I do not believe in any higher power. I do not accept anyone forcing their beliefs upon anyone else. I do not recognise universal, objective truths or a system of morality that is objectively superior to any other, nor do I recognise much objectivitity in general, and in that sense I am at least influenced by existentialism.

This is not to say that all atheists or even existentialists have large black segments in their philosophy. Both atheism and existentialism often go hand-in-hand with humanism, but such a suggestion of each individual having an intrinsic worth and importance is white/green, completely against black philosophy, and it is here that my differences with Black are brought to the fore. I always consider others – perhaps too much for my own good – and would not step on them or exploit them for my own gain.

Or, perhaps, so I would like to believe. I may not use people blatantly, but that isn’t to say I don’t manipulate them. Perhaps one could describe it as being careful with one’s words. Sometimes it will be for my own gain, sometimes it will be because I believe I know what’s best for them better than they do (a black/white trait), but usually it’s just a reluctance to offend anyone – to keep as many connections and friendships open as possible. This is because there is no sense in terminating a relationship that could prove fruitful in the future, which is essentially a selfish motive. This blue/black way of thinking doesn’t surface very often – as I said above, it’s not the sort of thing you go around warning people about – but I think it is one of the more black parts of me.

If you were to look at all the characters I’ve created in the past couple of years, a theme would emerge: they are all cold towards humanity, all completely without relationships, all utterly self-consumed – all black. I become so involved in creating these characters that it often makes me feel ill with anxiety that I may, deep down, be one of them. But Black often crosses paths with postmodernism, and in this case I am black once more in my belief that everything is a mask. When I’m with others, I’m friendly and always willing to meet new people. When I’m alone, I’m dark and brooding and consuming, sometimes so much so that I’m afraid that writing it here will convince my friends that I am a sociopath. Neither is my “real self” with the other being a “mask”; they are all me. One side belongs to this world, human society, and does what it can to fit in. The other side is utterly detached, ruthless, hidden and ambitious, not belonging but doing what it takes to fit in.

Does that make me radically different to others? No. I am certain that most people have such a black facet to them, but by its very nature, it remains under the surface. It may vary in intensity; I have several friends who I am sure are far more black than myself, and I can see the difference in how they think with friends and how they think alone. It is not that they are putting on an act or a mask – they are sincere in their friendship – but rather that different aspects come out at different times. It is not a question of sincerity, merely visibility.

Hopefully you managed to get through all that without either becoming too confused about what Black entails (or being convinced I’m an evil megalomaniac). If you want some examples of black characters in popular culture, I can give some classics: George Constanza is probably the most iconic, always willing to stoop to any level to further his own motives; Daffy Duck shows that you can have a likeable black character. Bart Simpson and Lex Luthor are also very black.

Well, that’s all for now. I don’t know when I’ll post the next part, but I have a lot of free time now. Join me then when I talk about pyromaniacal urges, wild sex flings and rebellious attitudes.

Otherwise, remember that even that the most black and white of issues are just that: black and white.

When I was four years old, my father shot me. 

I know that it was not his fault. He asked me not to play on the new slide, but I disobeyed him. I didn’t listen to his warning about what would happen if I did. When he found me sitting on the patch of dirt at its foot, he sighed, but without hesitation pulled out his revolver and shot me in the stomach. 

Three weeks later, I came back home from the hospital. The incident was covered up. My father was a very influential man. Rumours floated around town, but they were not enough to puncture my father’s charitable image. Even I didn’t hold anything against him. But from then on I was always the girl with the scar. 

For my father’s birthday the following year, I painted my love for him a rock, even though he had asked for a wall of paintings. He didn’t like my rock. He said I should be more thankful to him. I tried to tell him that I couldn’t paint a wall. He said I would have no dinner that night, and I would be locked in the basement furnace if next year’s gift wasn’t to his liking. I knew that he was allowed to, because he was my father and I owed everything to him. 

When I started school, I had a nice teacher called Mr Lee. When he found out who my father was, he seemed sad and told me I could ask him for help if I was ever in trouble. So I told him that the previous month, my father had bought me a puppy, then told me to drown it. Crying and with trembling hands, I had lowered it into the bathtub, but as soon as it touched the water he had stopped me and said I could keep the puppy. 

I think Mr Lee told the principal, because the next day my father was very angry. He had me transferred to another class and said not to talk to any teachers about personal things again. I asked where my puppy was. My father told me that he had put her in the furnace, for my own good. I didn’t believe him. But I never saw my puppy again. 

For the ten years I was in school, my father gave me different lessons at home. He would give me rules that I hadn’t learned in school. The first thing he said was that I had to always love him, or he would punish me. He told me that I must spend one day each week at home with him to prove I loved him. He told me never to question him, and to hate anyone who did. He told me horrible things would happen to me if I ever disobeyed him. I was afraid. 

When I was sixteen, I made friends with another girl. Then one time something happened between us. My father found out, and whipped me. Then we packed up and left town. I was too scared to go near a girl again for a long time. 

My father owned a mansion in another town. There were a few families renting rooms in it. My father took their money and kicked them out, so we could live there. I saw a woman crying with her baby. There was nothing anyone could do. Except my father.

My father invited over some men he knew. They were all a lot older than me. He offered me to them as a wife. One of them accepted, and we became married. I had no choice. But I knew my father was doing what was best for me. 

The following month, our country went to war. The army was not afraid of defeat. My father’s company made their weapons. Their weapons were the best in the world. All my father asked in exchange for the weapons was that he chose which country was attacked. I heard stories about rivers of blood left in the army’s path. I heard stories about children impaled against rocks, and thrown off cliffs. I didn’t believe my father would let that happen, just so he could get more land.

When I was twenty, I finally parted with my father. He was too old to run his company, so he chose someone in his place while he lived in another country. He chose a man named Chris. Everyone agreed Chris was nicer than my father. When he came for dinner with the other company members, he would tell stories. Everyone looked up to him. He put some of the company’s funds into a new medicine. He saved some lives, but eventually became too busy. Sometimes I wondered if he could save more if he wanted to. 

Then the riots happened. There were riots against the company’s weapons, which had killed thousands of people. They attacked the main building. Chris was shot in the struggle. They attacked our mansion and I was forced by another man. 

My father returned to deal with the disaster. He and my husband hated me. They said I had committed adultery. They didn’t care that it wasn’t my fault. That I had no choice. My father had finally had enough. He grabbed me and pushed me into the furnace. I was in there for half a minute before someone pulled me out. 

I opened my blistered eyes, crying from the pain, and saw a squad of policemen. Two had my father handcuffed and pinned against the wall. One was calling for an ambulance. Another was telling my father that he had got away with crimes for too long, and would be tried for hundreds and hundreds of cases of abuse, war crimes, and even more. My father received more than fifty life sentences in jail. He was only there for two years before he died.

I spent seven years receiving counselling for twenty years of what I learned had been terror on every level imaginable. I had bad scars all over my body from the burns, to join the one where my father had first shot me for being too curious. Despite that, I had opened my eyes to everything else. For the first time in almost thirty years, I tasted more freedom in the air than pain or fear. I knew that it wasn’t all lost.