Whenever I think about a new thing--anything--I find myself "testing" that new thing in a few predictable ways. I will try to understand as much as I can about it before I let that little judgement switch get flipped in a particular direction ("Hell Yea!"/"Fuck No."); I will think about what it's opposite might look like; I will imagine how other people think about it, and how their different perspective might change the thing's nature.

Each of these manipulations are largely unconscious, and are the result of trying to think deeply but quickly about many things. And each manipulation relies on major assumption: that every "thing" exists on at least one spectrum. And usually way more than one. This is important because it means that I am actively, at all times, resistant to binary thinking.

Binary thinking sounds like this: "She's fat." "He smells bad." "I hate pickles." "You are dumb." It's problematic because it defines and categorizes the thing before I have enough information to make an informed decision about it. And that can mean that I miss all the tasty goodness that might be available, just because I happened to notice some of the not-so-tasty aspects first.

On the other hand, when you start seeing everything--training concepts, art, politics--as a series of spectrums, you are establishing a perspective that is flexible to new information, cohesive with existing understanding and able to contribute to your worldview without blowing everything up in the process.