The idea that everything becomes its opposite, that conflict is the father of all things, comes from Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, who wrote that the road up and the road down are one and the same.

If you follow my work, you know I’m heavily influenced by Carl Jung. One concept he uses often is enantiodromia: the principle that when something reaches its extreme, the opposite begins to emerge.

When I first encountered the concept, I wondered whether it was at work in my own life.

I do believe in this principle to a certain degree. What speaks to me more is the struggle, the constant pull between light and darkness within us. Jung reminds us that we carry both light and shadow within. It is not simply that I become the opposite of what I was, but that these opposites are always in conversation, shaping, resisting, and redefining me.

I enjoy reading ancient texts, turning them over and over, seeing how they may apply to me. How I can learn from them, learn from my inner struggles, and live with the certainty that what is born will one day die. If death is the opposite of life, then our entire ecosystem lives on that principle. Our entire existence is built on conflict, on the rise and the fall, the ascent and the descent.

Birth and death are the only certainties, and perhaps the oldest struggle.

I hope mine remains a beautiful struggle.