The concept of the grey world was first explained to me by a doctor of philosophy I came across rather coincidentally, when I was a morbid radical undergrad who had just begun to look for alternative paths to The Meaning. I remember what a pain it was to listen to him the first time. He was surrounded by his disciples who I would later come to describe as ‘cultists’ which held true for every definition of the term except that they would conveniently leave if they deemed it better, and the cult, given its fundamental principle of intellectual freedom, would make no tantrum or effort to hold them back (quite a thing for a radical associated with a highly possessive, volatile organization). I carefully listened to him, disagreed with him strongly and finally gave in to his eloquence, authority, reason but far more importantly, his history. It ‘felt’ like he traveled the same road as I did, only twenty years ahead of me. As i look back, it feels to be the greatest irony of my life that I chose the path of ‘reason’ because an ‘intuition’ told me so. Perhaps it was the first grey of my life, the grey between the black and white of reason and intuition, that eventually opened up the grey universe for me.

It took me quite long to embrace the ideal of greyness that suggests that there exists murkiness between black and white which isn’t necessarily a wrong as opposed to right/sin as opposed to virtue/falseness as opposed to truth/ or zero as opposed to one. In a way, it made the job trickier because it directly implied that if there is such a thing as a ‘golden rule’ in this mayhem of a universe – a rule that would streamline all its contradictions and bring them into harmony, then there is a possibility that such a rule may exist NOT in the light of its whites but the murkiness of its greys.

The grey world, I’m beginning to realise, is more like a black hole – As vast as a universe in itself yet invisible to the external eye. Those who enter it, never come out. And somewhere along the way, they lose regard for what’s white/ one/ light/ virtue because it holds no proprietary right on the Golden Rule which is quite fair; only too far from what’s conventional and orthodox.

The black-hole similitude for the grey world leaves much to say. Signing off for now. Cheers.