Why Between Two Things? (Part One)
What Ferber and Sears got wrong.
First things first: this newsletter has a name. It’s sort of my life motto: Between Two Things. It comes from my belief that the truest, most meaningful thinking happens inside the space between two extremes.
The concept is deceptively simple, but I promise to do this long explanation only once.
What I do not mean is that truth is a watered-down version of either extreme or a mish-mash of both.
What I do mean is that banishing either extreme as obsolete or “untrue” actually weakens reality, which is best discovered by acknowledging the dynamic interplay between any two opposites.
Now I have to reference that famous quotation by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the same one from my first post, the one that was likely skirting your consciousness the moment you read my title. It is this:
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
What Fitzgerald describes in his essay “The Crack-Up” is different (by degree, mostly) than what I’m interested in. His example of two opposed ideas are hopelessness (as a reality) and hope (as a counterintuitive response to that reality). I agree, that the ability to hold these opposed ideas in the mind is crucial, but I’d go a step further to say that each extreme is incomplete without the other. So hope only functionally becomes hope when a person is faced with real despair. Until then, it has been only the idea of hope. Likewise, faith cannot fully manifest until it is heightened by real doubt.
Let’s take another, more practical, example. Pregnant with my first child, I read about the opposing child-rearing philosophies of Dr. Ferber and Dr. Sears. Ferber said to give infants a schedule and leave them alone at night until they stopped crying; Sears pushed back, advocating for gentler soothing methods. Having read up on both, I leaned in my disposition (and naïveté) toward Sears’ advice. But after my daughter was born, I intuitively knew the best approach acknowledged the best points of both “sides”—as well as countless other variables, including what the parents (and later, other children) most needed. Was it nurture, or was it sleep? Was it affection, or was it autonomy?
The dichotomy made sense only on paper, not in practice. A complete refutation of “CIO” (as the cry-it-out method later became caricatured) or attachment parenting (as Sears’ method is now called) was unsophisticated, as was a complete endorsement of either. Easy dichotomies like this low-stakes example form in popular culture because there is wisdom in both.
Residing in that in-between space can be confusing and uncomfortable, and human beings are wired for simplicity. It is in our best interest, from a survival perspective, to simplify and eliminate data until our belief system contains zero contradictions. It is quicker and cleaner to pick a side (say, Ferber) and hold fast.
Sometimes, that means we must actively know less, because more information might complicate things. Thus, to maintain a sense of control, we ask fewer questions, hear fewer stories, and visit fewer places unlike our own. Whether it’s politics, faith, relationships, or just where our kids should go to school, we settle on a story we’re happy with (one that makes us feel secure, powerful, accepted) and stop there. When a piece of contradictory data (a personal experience, a news clip, Aunt Maude’s opinion) encroaches, we shut down rather than reevaluate. We suppress the experience, close the internet window, and leave Aunt Maude alone at the dinner table, pontificating over her pumpkin pie.
We curate a social media and news feed that tells us the same story, over and over. And over.
It makes sense. By streamlining our thought processes, we have been historically better able to spend time on the activities that keep us alive: hunting and gathering food, protecting our clan from outside threats. And not only does this instinct to simplify keep us (theoretically) alive, but it also feels better. With no cognitive friction, we can relax.
But what if we are aiming for more than survival? And what if that cognitive friction is the very thing that generates compassion and gives life meaning?