Gray Matters

Have you ever sat in a room and listened to people arguing and you can understand both sides? Have you ever listened to people claim that one group of people is evil and another group is righteous and you can see both evil and righteousness in both groups?  If you have, then you understand my dilemma in life. I see the gray…in most situations. Recently, I discovered a television show that portrays all its characters as gray. The protagonists have some serious flaws that can be cringe worthy and the villains have some qualities that show love and grace that I wish more people in real life would have.  Cobra Kai has the gray matter, and in real life, gray matters. Cobra Kai is a television series that is a sequel to the original Karate Kid movies with the villain, Johnny, becoming the protagonist and the protagonist, Daniel, becoming the villain. 

I went to the National Debate Championship for high school students at the Ronald Reagan Library. The general public was only able to see the final two contestants. They both had to know how to speak for both sides. What a concept!  To see both sides of an issue makes you realize that in our world today, we have to see that answers to some hardcore issues can come from both sides.

Unfortunately in gray matters, the truth gets obscured. I’ve always told my students in an argument or fight that there are three sides to every story. There’s the side of the one person, the side of the other person, and then there’s the truth. No one may be overtly lying, but the truth gets seen in perspective. In gray matters, we take a look through the lens of the other person’s truth in order to find a solution. It’s how many detectives are able to discover the truth to the story.

I know that there are absolute truths in the world, and yes I believe in absolute truth. I know that there are people who would call me stupid for believing in absolute truth, but the absolute truth of gravity still keeps them from floating up in the air. In looking at a person through the lens of his or her perspective doesn’t mean you obscure your truth. It means you begin to understand how they see truth. It means that you see why they do what they do without judgment. It means that you realize that people are more complex than the pigeonhole that you keep trying to press into everyone, including yourself.

Once you begin to see people for who they are beyond the villain or the protagonist, you see what you can do to make the world a better place and influence them to join in on your cause. A person who has lost the fight doesn’t want to hear how evil he or she is. They want to know what they can do to win next time.

The old state of a true good guy and a true bad guy is just about gone in our world of story telling. Art is supposed to imitate life, but if we have to, maybe we should let life imitate art and begin to see those gray matters first in ourselves, and then in others. Sometimes you have to sit back and just observe, take note, and only speak when we have wisdom, not anger because speaking in anger will always make you a villain. May we take the time to be a protagonist to all those with whom we disagree and instead of seeing them as just the villain, see them as a protagonist of their own story.

The story is being written. The verdict is out. One episode you may cheer for Cobra Kai, and the next episode you may cheer for Miyagido. If we could look at the issues that we are undergoing in our current society, we need to look at people as people because if we don’t, we will all fall into the arena of pure evil.