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When the World Feels Dark and Beautiful in the Same Moment

Was bell hooks right about life’s opposites?

Image by Comfreak from Pixabay

I’m sure you’ve experienced those strange moments when you feel like your heart is pulled in opposite directions. There are so many experiences with this double-sided quality, where we feel two emotions at once.

Success at work is exciting and intimidating.

Falling in love is euphoric and scary.

Losing someone is sad, but can also be a time we feel grateful for our loved ones and supported.

The end of a relationship is heartbreaking, but it creates an opportunity to discover new things and new people. Relationships can very much be a tangle of emotions.

Perhaps we reflect the world in our own opposites: beautiful and broken; confident and insecure; found and lost. Those cliches feel familiar because that’s how we are. Humans by nature are dual and contradictory.

Are there answers in these opposites? I think there might be.

bell hooks

A famous feminist author died this week: bell hooks, a woman who decided not to capitalize her pen name to keep the focus on her work, rather than herself. I’m sure many people far more educated about feminism than I am will write…

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Kelly Eden | Essayist | Writing Coach
Kelly Eden | Essayist | Writing Coach

Written by Kelly Eden | Essayist | Writing Coach

New Zealand-based essayist | @ Business Insider, Mamamia, Oh Reader, Thought Catalog, ScaryMommy and more. Say hi at https://becauseyouwrite.substack.com/

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