Opposite Dualities

The Elegant Letter O

The Letter:

The Phoenicians called the first O ayin, their word for eye. The letter’s shape originated from hieroglyphic images of an almond-shaped eye with a round pupil. By 1000 BCE, it had transformed into a simple circle, and its shape has remained remarkably unchanged to the present day.

From L to R - Phoenician ayin, transitional style, Greek omicron

The Greek language did not have the guttural consonant sound of ayin, so they repurposed O as the vowel omicron – literally, the micro or small O. In the late 7th century BCE, the Greeks developed a separate letter for the “aw” sound - Ω omega (as in mega or big O). Because it was developed after the Etruscans and Romans adopted the Greek alphabet, Ω does not appear in Western European languages despite it being a familiar cultural image.

The Shape and Symbol:

Independent from the words they create, letter shapes are deeply engrained cultural symbols that can evoke powerful mental imagery. To experience this directly, try this simple thought experiment.

Picture a blank piece of paper with nothing but a letter of the alphabet printed on it. What comes to mind?

Instantaneously, your brain will recognize the image as a letter and trigger thoughts of words that begin with it. One of those words may conjure up mental images like a song lyric, a loved one’s name, or a memorable event from your past—powerful stuff from a few abstract lines.

Any letter can produce the same phenomenon, but you may have a different experience with O because its pure geometric shape exists across our human experience—unveiling itself in natural landscapes, visual art, microscopes, and space.

Let’s continue our thought experiment by imagining the shape below outside the context of this post.

Because it is a geometric shape, your brain may not make an immediate connection to a letter. You might just see a circle. Mr. Bill’s mouth. A zero. A planet. A hug. A ring. Or, just an O. Does it trigger any deeper thoughts?

What is your reaction to the next image?

Although it is similar to the circle above in size and shape, it is unlikely that you would describe this image as a representation of the letter O. Westerners commonly call these images Zen Circles. In Japanese, they are called ensō - a traditional art form and method of meditation based solely on drawing a circle with a single fluid line. In Zen philosophy, these images represent dualities such as the relationship between nothingness (the circle’s internal space) and infinity (the never-ending path of a circle).

As you can see, an O can quickly transform from a simple shape into a sublime construct.

The Painting:

Although the painting was completed a few weeks ago, I am writing this post three days after a consequential US election that once again showed that humans can be easily swayed by artifice. So today, revealing some simple truths about my creative process seemed like a helpful way to process my distress.

Humans are hard-wired to find meaning and patterns to explain the things we observe. Although this trait is frequently a driver of innovation and creativity, it can also lead us to invent false relationships by connecting unrelated things – like, uh, demonizing immigrants for causing a nonexistent increase in crime (…just saying).

Artists fall into a similar trap when we try to assign meaning to images that arise from our subconscious. The truth is that life is filled with randomness and disorder. One of the lessons I continue to re-learn in both my life, and my art, is that our most meaningful experiences often happen when we stop fighting these forces and start to embrace ambiguity, spontaneity, and flexibility.

This painting started with a simple goal - construct a circle using only straight lines. Simple guidelines like this help unlock my creative process, forcing me to focus on texture, composition, and color instead of subject matter.

After painting the ensō above, I was struck by the similarities and differences between it and this post's subject. Ensō masters paint their circles with a single brush stroke, while my technique created a circle from thousands of straight lines. When I compared the two paintings side by side, they suggested a duality encompassing intricacy and simplicity.

Needing a title that began with O, I reviewed synonyms for “duality” and found the word “opposite." The name Opposite Dualities was a happy accident that evoked an interesting circular tension while also reflecting technical differences between the two paintings. That made me curious about an AI definition of this entirely made-up phrase. After a few refinements, here is ChatGPT’s interpretation:

• Opposite Dualities refers to pairs of contrasting forces, concepts, or qualities that coexist in a paradoxical relationship, often creating outcomes that defy straightforward logic. These pairs are not merely opposites; their interaction can produce a unique tension that leads to unexpected or neutralizing effects.

At first glance, this might pass as a reasonable explanation of a philosophical concept. But because we know that the origin of the image and its title were entirely random, the definition devolves into nonsense. This is not a criticism of generative AI. It is more a comment on how we use it or disguise our use of it.

I find no reason to fear artificial intelligence because art, poetry, and philosophy speak to and reflect the human experience, something a machine can never do. The primary danger is not that machines can create images and texts but that some human beings will misrepresent AI constructions as genuine artistic expressions. But this is nothing new. Sadly, deception is an age-old challenge—something that America’s political environment illustrates all too well.

So, I invite you to look at Opposite Dualities again with these new insights. My goal with this post was to provide background and context without steering you down any specific path. I hope you find something unexpected.