I have been thinking a lot about polarity, about how seemingly contradictory or discordant things can simultaneously be true. There are, of course, many examples of this, but recently, I’ve been thinking about the similarities and differences between dreams and goals.
My son shared a quote he remembers from a youth hockey camp: dreams only work if we do. Dreams seem more lofty, aspirational, exciting. Goals seem mundane, workaday, required. All of these things are simultaneously true and not true. Goals can be lofty; dreams can be workaday. Therein lies the genius of polarity—all things are and are not, and seemingly contradictory positions, opinions, or values coexist. All things are what we make them out to be. It’s not what happens but how we relate to it that matters.
I was struck by the duality in Emily Mae Smith’s work of setting suns, Double Sun Melting Point (2021). Something familiar, a sunset, is rendered in a way that is unfamiliar—two suns setting simultaneously—which then evokes another familiar associated image of sunglasses or a female face. It’s all there and also not. Our minds work to know things, and sometimes, in that effort, the magic of “something more”—or even something better—can be lost. Or not.
