Yin and yang. The Chinese principle of dualism. Yin is soft, yang is hard. Yin is tranquil, yang is restless. Yin is slow, yang is rapid. Yin is cold, yang is hot. Yin is gentle, yang is rough. Sometimes, I hear people assert that yin is feminine, yang is masculine.

I was talking Satyen Raja on my podcast and he said “in any type of relationship there’s a masculine energy, one person has more of a masculine energy at their deepest core and there’s another partner who has more of a feminine essence at their deepest core.” He went on to talk about how this feeling of “fitting together” can fool us into believing we’re in love. It’s a great interview. But it got me thinking about this idea of duality.

I once heard a comedian say that there are two kinds of people in the world - those who think there are two kinds of people and those who don’t. I don’t. I see the world in infinite variety. I see masculinity in the way I care for my children and femininity in the ferocity of my sexuality. I see the hard in the soft and the light in the darkness, and all the shades of gray in between.

I believe great relationships are all about the gray areas. We are neither one thing nor the other, we dance and flow back and forth, sometimes leading, sometimes following, sometimes on top, sometimes on bottom, always side-by-side, intertwined.

The funny thing about the Chinese philosophy of yin and yang is that it also includes finding the yin in yang and the yang in yin. And then finding the yin in the yang that’s in the yin…well, you get the idea.

By the way, there are actually three kinds of people - those who understand arithmetic and those who don’t.