Binary Thinking and the Space In Between | Field Notes by Michel Van Devender

I was talking with my oldest son recently, and we ended up in a conversation about how easy it is to slip into really fixed ways of thinking. How quickly we form opinions, judge and settle into a perspective without leaving much room for anything outside of it. That either or way of thinking. We were talking about the ability to think in more nuanced, complex terms or maybe just to be a little less quick to judge, to stay more open to views that don’t immediately line up with our own. It really got me thinking more about this.

Because it’s hard not to notice what’s happening right now. Everything feels like it’s being pulled into these starkly opposite sides… or at least that’s how it’s starting to feel to me. Maybe this has always been there, but it feels more pronounced these days, like we’ve become more entrenched in our beliefs and opinions. It’s not always overt. It’s more of this underlying sense that things need to land somewhere certain or be put into very clean, black and white categories. That there’s a right way to see something and a wrong way and the goal is to figure out which is which as quickly as possible and then place yourself in one camp or the other. The polarization is pretty intense, and at times, it even starts to feel a little dehumanizing. It carries a them versus us kind of energy, even when it’s subtle. Although, lots of times it’s pretty blatant.

And if I’m being honest, that kind of thinking gets rewarded. The more binary something is, the more easily it seems to travel. It’s cleaner, more digestible, easier to react to. It gets more clicks, more attention, more validation. There’s something about it that fits the pace of everything right now.

I can feel how tempting that is too, even identifying it in myself. Sometimes it happens without really noticing. There’s something about having a clear position that makes things feel more settled, more secure… like you know where you stand or at least you think you do and what to do with what you’re seeing. It seems a lot easier than sitting with something that doesn’t quite resolve, something more complex or something that seems to hold more than one truth at the same time. Which is harder to sit with than I’d like. I notice it even in small moments, like how quickly I form an opinion while scrolling or how fast I want to respond before I’ve really taken something in.

But the more I pay attention, the less it actually fits into those kinds of neat lines… if it ever really did. Most things are far more complicated and nuanced than that, in a way that’s harder to define. If I’m being honest, a little more unsettling. Like something can be true and also incomplete or meaningful and still not the whole picture.

And I notice how quickly I want to move past that part, that small moment where something isn’t fully clear yet. It’s almost automatic, the way the mind tries to sort it, name it, decide what it is, put it somewhere so it can move on. I think there’s something very human in that… or at least it feels that way to me. This need to reduce complexity so we can feel more certain, more in control. In psychology, it’s sometimes talked about as a need for cognitive closure, that pull toward answers that feel finished. And maybe it’s not always that something is still unfolding. Sometimes it’s just that what’s in front of us was never meant to fit into one side or the other in the first place.

I don’t feel particularly certain about much, but I do feel that something gets lost in that rush to simplify everything. It makes things easier to hold, easier to digest, but also a little flatter, like some of the depth gets smoothed over in the process.

I think about this sometimes when I’m working. Which is funny, because visually I’m so drawn to black and white, to contrast, to that immediate clarity of light and dark. It probably looks, from the outside, like I’m working in a very binary way. But the actual process doesn’t feel like that at all. It’s slower, more layered, more nuanced, a lot of adjusting and reworking and not really knowing where something is going for a while. I spend a lot of time in that middle place, sitting with not having it all figured out. There’s tension in it and things that don’t fully resolve in a clean way.

So there is a bit of irony in that, I guess. Being so drawn to black and white and also feeling like most things don’t actually live in that kind of either or place. Maybe it’s not really about choosing one side or the other… or maybe not in the way we tend to think about it. Maybe it’s more about how willing we are to stay in that in between space a little longer, even when it’s less comfortable. That both and place where more than one thing can be true at the same time or where something doesn’t fully belong to either side at all.

And at the same time, I find myself wondering where the lines actually do matter. When it comes to how we treat each other, to humanity, to human life, it doesn’t feel as abstract. There are moments where something in me does land more clearly, where it doesn’t feel like everything is open ended or relative.

I don’t think I have a clean, clear answer for that either… and I’m not sure I’m supposed to. Maybe it’s not about letting go of the idea of right and wrong altogether, but about being more thoughtful with how quickly we assign it and how tightly we hold it when we do. Maybe it’s about learning how to hold conviction and complexity at the same time, which feels a lot harder than just choosing a side.

I share more like this here… and occasionally through email.

michel