Contrast: The state of being strikingly different from something else in juxtaposition or close association.
Juxtaposition: The fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect.
Energy: In physics, energy is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat and light. Energy is precious and valuable.
In all the known faiths, and even the non-religions, there are stories, allegories, and analogies consistent amongst all of them. From a thousand years ago, to tens of thousands of years ago, to today. They all possess a common denominator to help humanity understand, make sense, cope, and provide hope.
While many have heard of The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse: Death, War, Pestilence, and Famine, their existence seems improbable without also The Four Horseman of Salvation: Life, Peace, Forgiveness, and Abundance. Nothing exists without its opposite. Contrast is.
Below are four validations that life is juxta contrast:
Existence Powered by Contrast: Life is made possible by death. Darkness is possible because of light. Happiness is the contrast to sadness. Good is distinguished from evil. Herman Melville said it best, “There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.”
Contrast is Energy: There is stress, strain, and pressure between opposites. That resistance is the energy that exists in all things. Carl Jung said, “The greater the contrast, the greater the potential. Great energy only comes from a correspondingly great tension of opposites.”
Sameness is Nothingness: When there is no distinctness, incongruity, or diverseness, there is simultaneously nothing. As artist Bob Ross famously noted, “Put light against light - you have nothing. Put dark against dark - you have nothing. It's the contrast of light and dark that each gives the other one meaning.”
Gratitude: Gratitude for pain, suffering, and loss is the simultaneous thankfulness for pleasure, happiness, and abundance, for none are possible without the other. “Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed,” said Edgar Allen Poe.