#409 Quick Simple Categories versus Reality

     Many of us are more comfortable making quick either-or-judgments than exploring subtle shades of gray ie we tend to see things as either black or white. We quickly conclude that we like or dislike something, can or can't do a task, etc. Dichotomous thinking is our default autopilot mode. We may even identify with such ambiguity intolerance - "that's me, that's who I am, always was and always will be."
     Gradually we learn that virtually nothing is black-or-white. Extremes are perhaps only concepts, with infinite real shades of gray in between. Even two apparently polar opposites can be present and true at the same time eg we each have a number of subpersonalities, one of which may resemble a vulnerable child, and another a wise grandparent. Clearly, concepts and models of reality are but very rough sketches. Our growing psychological flexibility allows us to break free from the corner we may have boxed ourselves into, and to increasingly embrace reality as it is. We begin to realize that ambiguity intolerance is an adaptive over-simplification of an enormously complex, constantly changing world. And we ourselves are infinitely more complex than a pattern of likes and dislikes.