white lightening
against a
black sky
awakening
–Terry Chitwood
Black and white thinking, the bane of traders and logicians everywhere, easy to do, easy to see, leads to the gates of the Underworld, home of the hidden Hydra—its guardian. Cut off one of its heads and the Hydra grows two more (black and white). So black and white thinking is an archetypal process (e.g., the opposites) designed to trap you in dualism.
A New Worldview
Rather than viewing life two-dimensionally, perceive life three-dimensionally, four-dimensionally . . . multi-dimensionally. In my free-form haiku, the resolution of the opposites (black and white) is the birth of the third (awakening). Awaken to the birth of the new perspective.
The Opposites
In the market, this process is mirrored by expansion, pullback (contraction), and more expansion into new highs or new lows (trending). Whereas price bouncing between support and resistance (ranges) mirrors being caught up in the opposites. Markets range about 80% of the time showing the attraction to the cyclic nature of the opposites.
Cycles
This cyclic nature of the opposites is reflected in the internal bouncing between emotional states: happiness and sadness, fear (contraction) and excitement (expansion), love and hate, etc. This cycling is accelerated in people with bipolar disorder but happens with everyone to a certain extent.
Resolution
Jung recommends sitting in the fire between the emotional and other opposites, between the ego’s position and the psyche’s position, holding the tension, waiting for a spontaneous resolution into the transcendent function (the third)—a creative solution that unites the opposites. The creative solution awakens, leading to flashes of insight that surprise, shock, and like lightening—electrify.
Photo Credit: Stock photo by Petre Coman.