Instead of Binary Opposites...

Instead of binary opposites, I propose that everything has a price, a promise, and a shadow.

The price is what must be given so it can happen. The promise is what we hope to gain from it. The shadow is its unaccounted and often destructive manifestation, the one we deny can come from it.

And maybe add in its absence - what happens when it is not there - and its ghost - what happens when it was once there but is no longer.

The price of love is vulnerability, the promise is reciprocation and fulfillment. The shadow is hate, jealousy, passionate extremes that spring up from the same source. Its absence is apathy, and its ghost is grief.

We can belong, too, for the price of consent and compromise. The promise is community. Its shadow, conformity and prejudice. When belonging is absent it becomes loneliness and dehumanization. When it turns into a ghost, it becomes stigma.

And so on, and so forth.

What must be given. What we hope it will give back. What we deny it has. What is without it. What it becomes when it no longer is.

Just a bit more dynamic than inherent binary opposites, and more useful than a duality model for certain concepts.