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I enjoy a friendly debate but sometimes I come across moments where I shut down and my mind goes on red alert. It doesn’t matter if you’re a stranger or my friend.

Blame it on a life studying and playing music. Tone and interpretation and the subtleties in expression is an obsession. I hear patterns and moods in spaces of notes and silence, so when a conversation takes on certain “cadences”, I notice.

An example of questions that turn on the caution lights are....

Are you a feminist?
Do you believe in climate change?

There’s a ton of them and when they are asked from an emotionally charged person who keeps telling you....

M: “Come on, JNET, it’s a simple question, why do you have to be difficult and make it complicated? Arrrggh!!! It’s either yes or no. There’s no other answer.”

I get quiet.

I HATE loaded questions that are reduced to two options. I struggled explaining this to my friend who found me ridiculous and confounding. I told him that I wished to evade his question out of principle. I don’t answer questions that are designed to entrap.

M: “But you’re my friend. I love you. I’m not trapping you. Just answer the simple question.”

My friend saw a simple question where I heard a compromising one.

JNET: “There’s a word for the conversation style. Choose either yes or no when neither is a good fit. I’m not a computer that can spit a simple answer on a complex subject.”

M: “OMG”

JNET: “It’s like asking a computer if humans are bad. SIMPLE computation would point to YES. Humans have a history of imperfection. Bring in some high and mighty AI, and the program to disseminate humanity becomes logic.”

I ended the conversation and called it a night. I wanted to find the term to explain why I evade certain conversations and I found it.

Binary thinking.

It’s not a sexy pepsi term but I found someone who explains it beautifully and in lovely artsy fartsy form.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=6WwYPr7LKzQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=6WwYPr7LKzQ)

Binary thinking.

Life isn’t black and white. It’s intricate, complex, and gorgeous. Details and nuances need patience and compassion to be heard and binary thinking misses that conversation. 

If we can recognize it, maybe we can give peace a chance and live life in color.

JNET

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