“Dialectics”  is a concept in which opposites can be integrated in order to reach a closer, and constantly evolving, approximation to the truth.

There is a certain logic to my randomness – please bear with me. And if the logic is purely my own, I apologise, and would invite you to embrace the randomness, ignore the dialectic, and just enjoy the music.

This post has been born out of the following three things:

My own love of the Katy B song, whose words really resonate with me, and which I often have playing on repeat.

My children’s love of the film Madagascar 3, which incorporates the Katy Perry song, and which I have now seen almost as many times as I have listened to the Katy B song. [Incidentally, it’s amazing what repeated watching can do to the brain. Initially I thought that Madagascar 3 had been created by someone whilst on hallucinogenic drugs. Now I think that it’s a work of genius. Make of that what you will.]

My reading of ‘The Buddha and the Borderline’ by Kiera Van Gelder (which I can heartily recommend, purely on the grounds that although the author’s circumstances were in many ways quite different to my own, I often felt as though she was holding up a mirror to my thoughts, feelings and behaviours). As Dialectical Behaviour Therapy was a key part in the author’s journey of recovery from BPD, the concept of dialectics occurs frequently in the book.

Somehow, these three things came together in my brain, in a way that made a certain kind of sense. The challenge, as with any dialectic, and particularly for me, given my BPD, is to try and hold the words of the second song, alongside the first, without the one negating or diminishing the other. To see that they can both be true, at the same time, and that the reality of one perspective, does not erase the reality of the other.

I immerse myself in the one prevailing feeling, as I do in the one prevailing song that is the soundtrack of my life at any one moment. Perhaps I need to try and mix it up a bit. It may help me to reach a closer approximation to the truth about myself and about my place in the world. It would certainly help my children to broaden their musical tastes beyond singers whose names start with the letter ‘K’.

Katy B – Crying for no reason

“I push all my problems to the back of my brain
A darkness deep inside where I just can’t find my way
How can I walk with a smile? Get on with my day
When I deceived myself pretending it’s all okay.

I tried my best to hold it all together, I know
The strings have worn away and now I’m all exposed
I try to hide it all away on top of the shelf
I can lie to everyone but not to myself.”

Katy Perry – Firework

“You don’t have to feel like a waste of space
You’re original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow.”

[Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) was developed by Marsha M. Linehan as a form of psychotherapy specifically designed to help those with self-harming and suicidal behaviours and those with complex mental health disorders which involve severe emotional dysregulation (including Borderline Personality Disorder). It combines cognitive behavioural techniques with concepts of distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindfulness. In DBT, acceptance and change come through dialectical progress, in which thesis+antithesis=synthesis.]