I remember one time when I was living at the old place, and a new neighbor moved in. I had been given two garbage dumpsters at my house seven years earlier, but since the house next door was a duplex, each apartment got one. While it was vacant, someone stole the one that had gone to one apartment.

When the new neighbor moved in, I told her that and suggested that she ask the landlord to get her a new one, and she could use mine in the meantime. I came home a few days later to find one of mine moved over to her door. She then informed me, in front of her friends and relatives, that she had spoken to Waste Management and there was just one per house, and that that one was hers. Well, I hit the roof. I don't give a shit what the garbage collectors say. I KNOW how many damn garbage bins I've had for the past seven years. This issue was, to me, black and white. I knew I had two, and had for seven years. I wasn't just IMAGINING having two, and I wasn't trying to steal hers.

By this time the landowner who had made the initial arrangements (that is, the extra bins) was in very poor health, and the property manager wasn't willing to do anything about it. A few days later, though, when I got home from work, my neighbor met me at the fence with a beer and a gift-wrapped joint. We talked, and settled the garbage bin custody issue. Evidently, someone let her know that it WAS possible for extra bins to be delivered, and she didn't see me as liar and bin thief any longer. We never did get a new bin, but we each kept one and used each other's when needed. We found the answer not in the black and white, but in the grey.

Had I stuck to my insistence that she see and acknowledge me as being 100% right, we not only would not have become the friends that we did, but would probably have argued about those damned bins for the entire year and a half that we lived next to each other. After all, I WAS right. I may not be in MENSA but I can count  two goddam garbage bins with a high degree of accuracy. The facts were plain, simple black and white. The same would apply if she, instead of offering an olive branch, had tried to get me to admit to stealing her bin and lying about it. After all, she was pretty certain of her information, too. It seemed black and white in her mind.

Facts can exist quite comfortably in the black and white. Solutions, not so much. This is an abstract that can be applied to almost any problem solving situation that hinges on opposing points of view. Say, for instance, international relations.

Say you're in Country A, which would be a nice place if it weren't for Country B, which has a nasty tendency to hurl bombs over the border and deny your right to exist. You know for a fact that these people suck ass and so do many other nations. However, the people in Country B know that you're the one who sucks ass, and many other nations know you suck ass as well. They say you stole their land and murdered their people. These statements- bombs, denial of existence rights, theft of land, murder- all exist in the black and white. Some are not debatable. The bombs and the denials are all well on record. Other, like theft of land, are debatable, but NOT TO THE PEOPLE IN COUNTRY B WHO SEE THEM AS BLACK AND WHITE.

So, are we going to solve this issue by waiting until everyone sees the same black and/or the same white? Or will we merely find this a useful method for prolonging it?

I don't have the answer to these countries' issues (and in no way want to imply that this is the only major conflict that this theme could apply to- I'm trying to stay with abstracts here), but I do know that the only way to settle a conflict while remaining in the black and white is to eliminate anyone who doesn't see things your way. For these countries, that would mean thorough eradication. Genocide. Which, due to the fact that there are citizens of each living in more remote areas, is still not likely to stop the fighting altogether. If you don't want to eliminate entire countries, you have to go to the grey.

Doing so does NOT mean that you admit to being wrong. It simply entails that you allow your mind to open enough to see that the other party sees their reality as being every bit as black and white as you see your own as being. It requires that you acknowledge that other points of view exist. These points of view may be absolutely contrary to verifiable fact, but they aren't going away. They have reality for people who are willing to act upon them. Thus, in order to find a solution, those points of view must be met, just as the holders of them must meet yours. Somewhere. In the grey.

Anyone who isn't willing to do this simply isn't looking for peace. That person wants only to be right. And who doesn't, sometimes,  want to be right? Being right, however, can prove a bit Pyrrhic to those who happen to be under the bombs. Or even  those who just want to dispose of their garbage without a hassle.

And I wouldn't pretend that no one wants to find a solution in the grey, here in my little example. I'm certain there are those on both sides that do, although those from Country B are fewer and far less likely to speak their minds freely, due to an advanced form of peer pressure. The point is, however, that BOTH sides have those that do not. Seeing the grey, for those on one side, is accepting the theft of their birthright. For those on the other side, the grey represents negotiating with terrorists. Whatever can or cannot be proven, these things are all indelible facts to those that think them, and no peace can be possible until the others admit how wrong they are and how right we are. These people, on both sides, will not only fail to solve the problem, but can also hinder those who might have a chance at it, especially when they hold positions of power. The "grey-blind" become part of the problem, instead.

No solution - to a war, a political issue, a personal dispute, or even a crossword puzzle- can be reached without an open mind. No matter how much it may hurt.