The Twilight Zone

Ambiguity has a strange power over us. It slows us down. It makes us hesitate. It creates a space where we can linger between comfort and the discomfort ahead — the way we drive into dusk, squinting at the road, postponing the moment we admit we need to turn on the lights.

In many ways, we are living in a twilight zone. Though the world often does feel uncannily like the TV series, I'm referring to a deeper twilight: a moment that is neither fully day nor fully night. A space between light and darkness.

There is something about twilight that sharpens awareness. In full daylight, we move quickly and confidently because we can see what lies ahead. In complete darkness, we know we cannot see, so we move cautiously to avoid what we might stumble over. But in twilight, vision itself becomes unreliable. Shapes blur. Shadows masquerade as solid ground. We are unsure whether what we're seeing is real or illusion.

It is this uncertainty that makes us pause. And in that pause, we begin to think.

We do not control the sun. We do not command the night. But we do possess something else: the ability to adjust our vision, to slow our steps, to choose how we move through the in-between. The light exists. So does the darkness. What remains in our power is how we navigate their meeting.

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The Threshold

In Judaism, there is a concept called Bein HaShmashot — literally, "between the suns”. It refers to the twilight period between sunset and night. Its status is deliberately suspended in uncertainty. It is treated as possibly day, possibly night, or somehow both at once.

In Jewish law, this ambiguity matters deeply. Some rules of day still apply. Some rules of night already apply. The moment isn't seen in black and white, and neither is the application of the rules. Judgments soften. Finality is temporarily suspended. Beyond Jewish law, rabbinic tradition treats Bein HaShmashot as a charged threshold: a moment saturated with transition, fragility, and potential.

Modern thinkers often use it symbolically to describe states of becoming — between exile and redemption, between ordinary time and sacred time, between one life chapter and the next. It is not a destination. It is a crossing.

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Living in Managed Dimness

This is not the twilight of ignorance. It is the twilight of choice.

Like all choices, we learn how to justify them. We tell ourselves stories about why we cannot see clearly. We need more data. We need more time. We need consensus. We need to be sensitive to complexity.

Complexity is real. But sometimes complexity becomes a place to hide.

Consider how often we encounter situations where the facts are known, the values are clear, and the tools for action exist. Yet somehow, collectively, we agree to squint. We create administrative categories that allow us to affirm principles while avoiding their implications. We build systems that can acknowledge a problem while carefully declining to measure its true scope.

We know what we're not looking at. The evidence sits in databases we maintain but choose not to analyse. In reports we commission but don't act on. In patterns we recognise but don't name. The light switch is within reach. We've simply decided that the room is more comfortable in semi-darkness.

This happens in our institutions. But it also happens in our lives.

We see the friend struggling but tell ourselves it's not our place to intervene. We notice the pattern at work but decide we don't have enough status to speak. We recognise our own behaviour isn't aligned with our stated values, but we're waiting for a better moment to change. We have the conversation in our head but not out loud.

Twilight, in these moments, is not something that happens to us. It is something we maintain. We stand still, by choice.

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The Question at the Threshold

Jewish law treats Bein HaShmashot with special care precisely because it is a transition — fragile, temporary, not meant to be permanent. The rabbis left room for softened judgment during twilight because they understood: you don't live there. You pass through.

But what happens when we start treating twilight as a destination? When we become comfortable at dwelling in the space between knowing and acting? When we develop sophisticated reasons why this particular moment isn't quite the right one to take a stand?

Twilight was never meant to be endless. The sun sets. Night comes. And then, whether we're ready or not, dawn.

The instruments of illumination surround us — values we claim, truths we possess, power we hold. What remains, as one year fades and another waits unseen, is not whether we have access to light — it is how long we plan to stand here, squinting.