Alike and Unalike

We all have a tendency to group things by category. Our bookshelves might have one section for fiction, another for travel, and another for cookbooks. In our kitchens, we might keep sweet, baking spices separate from savory ones. When we plan a dinner party, we might invite work friends or parents from our kids’ school, but probably not both. By dividing the world into tidy compartments, we make it more predictable, more manageable--and a little more dull.

It’s worth remembering that our moments of discovery and inspiration often arrive when we see the connections between things that, at first, seem unalike. A sprinkle of sea salt or chili powder on a sweet confection. A diminished chord in the chorus of an otherwise standard country song. A spark between two people, from completely different parts of your life, as they meet for the first time.

These are like living metaphors: the juxtaposition of two disparate ideas whose sliver of connection illuminates a deeper truth about the world.

In our search for ease and predictability, we organize our lives into carefully labeled boxes and shelves. But it’s the unexpected collisions, and the friction between unalike things, that give our lives their motion and their moments of revelation.