I think the hard­est ques­tion to answer is what do you believe in. I don’t know man, all of it, I believe in every­thing & nothing.

To which the response usu­ally is, “at the same time?” 

Life is in it’s con­cept, phi­los­o­phy, and prac­ti­cal­ity, is a para­dox. 

Para­doxes are sets of two seem­ingly oppos­ing ideas that are true at the same time. They defy intu­ition, logic and are often pretty absurd. They exist in every facet of life (from what I’ve observed) from math­e­mat­i­cal to visual (MC ESCHER). The fact that oppo­sites can  exist simul­ta­ne­ously together at all is intrin­si­cally para­dox­i­cal when you think about it.

The Para­dox of Dual­ism and Opposites

Here’s a funny thing about monis­tic phi­los­o­phy (the idea that EVERYTHING is just one thing), any phi­los­o­phy that denies dual­ism is inher­ently dual­is­tic itself, since it’s still claim­ing a sep­a­ra­tion of oppo­sites –dual­ity vs. monism (two things vs. one thing.) The ver­sus men­tal­ity is a divi­sive men­tal­ity; nature ver­sus man, black ver­sus white, us verses them, monism ver­sus dual­ism. But a crazy thing (& by crazy I mean mind bend­ing) about the uni­verse being monis­tic, is that simul­ta­ne­ously it is just one uni­fied sub­stance & sep­a­rated into a world of oppo­sites (maya- illu­sion), because it con­tains every­thing (or rather it IS every­thing). The idea that every­thing is one would there­fore exclude oppo­sites &  that would mean that oppo­sites don’t exist at all.

Oppo­sites (the world of dual­ity) do exist on one level, but all oppo­sites will even­tu­ally blend together, rec­on­cile. Para­dox is a force of thought and lan­guage, that makes us take into account that two oppo­site things are in align­ment, are really a whole. Oppo­sites aren’t really real. They are true and false, mean­ing­ful and mean­ing­less. Exam­ples can be found in our lan­guage, the artsy oxy­moron for instance, freezer burn, or in the art & design prin­ci­ple of neg­a­tive and pos­i­tive space. In order for form to exist there has to be space for it to exist in, and space itself becomes form. All extremes blend into each other. (For instance, though the exact ideals may be oppos­ing, is there any real dif­fer­ence in behav­ior between extreme lib­er­als and extreme conservatives?)

Nihilists and deists rejoice! You are both right, you are two sides of the same coin. Par­ti­cles and waves.

“Let’s be def­i­nite, let’s have rigor and pre­ci­sion, even though we are study­ing poetry.’ But the poets will reply: ‘We are for goo, and you peo­ple are all dry bones, rat­tling in the wind. What you need is essen­tial juices, and there­fore more goo is nec­es­sary to liven you up.’ But when we want to know what goo is, and exam­ine it care­fully, we even­tu­ally turn up with a struc­ture, the mol­e­c­u­lar or atomic com­po­si­tion of goo! On the other hand, when we try to exam­ine the struc­ture itself to study the sub­stance of bones, we inevitably come up with some­thing gooey. When the micro­scope focus is clear, you have struc­ture. But when you reach beyond the focus and what con­fronts you is vague and amor­phous, you have goo because you can­not attain clar­ity. Struc­ture and goo are essen­tial lim­its of human thought” – Alan Watts

Oppo­sites need each other because they ARE each other. Would life exist with­out death? We have to eat to sur­vive, which means we must kill to eat. Even a salad was once alive. & could you have light with­out the prover­bial dark­ness? Or know what true elec­tri­fy­ing hap­pi­ness is with­out feel­ing the bleak, tor­ren­tial depths of depres­sion? Oppo­sites are con­tra­dic­tory but upon closer exam­i­na­tion– aren’t they exactly the same? That same­ness is the deeper meaning.

The metaphor of the Para­dox of Choice

In the rel­a­tively suc­cess­ful west­ern soci­ety I find myself in-unlimited choice is con­sid­ered free­dom. The more, infi­nitely unlim­ited options you have, the bet­ter & hap­pier you will be. But hav­ing so many choices usu­ally has the oppo­site effect of being crip­pling. Like stand­ing in the tooth­brush aisle feel­ing over­whelmed by the pretty ridicu­lous amount of vari­a­tions, brand vari­a­tions, elec­tric or man­ual, bris­tle feel, han­dle feel, super spe­cial fea­tures like tongue scrap­ers and those scrubby rub­ber cir­cles, I imag­ine that we, as con­sumers, are expected to com­par­i­son shop, but I sus­pect that in real­ity we end up grab­bing the first one we see or the cheap­est or bright­est in col­or­ing. Not what I typ­i­cally feel is free­ing. More par­a­lyz­ing, anx­ious & need­less. Every­thing, even some­thing so famously con­sid­ered as beau­ti­ful as unlim­ited choice has a neg­a­tive side and a pos­i­tive side.

Matter/antimatter.

“…an old Chi­nese farmer lost his best stal­lion one day and his neigh­bor came around to express his regrets, but the farmer just said, “Who knows what is good and what is bad.” The next day the stal­lion returned bring­ing with him 3 wild mares. The neigh­bor rushed back to cel­e­brate with the farmer, but the old farmer sim­ply said, “Who knows what is good and what is bad.” The fol­low­ing day, the farmer’s son fell from one of the wild mares while try­ing to break her in and broke his arm and injured his leg. The neigh­bor came by to check on the son and give his con­do­lences, but the old farmer just said, “Who knows what is good and what is bad.” The next day the army came to the farm to con­script the farmer’s son for the war, but found him invalid and left him with his father. The neigh­bor thought to him­self, “Who knows what is good and what is bad.”

East­ern mys­tics and philoso­phers have long under­stood that the appear­ance of oppo­sites are just that, appear­ances. What seems good, what seems cold, what seems hard & solid & full of mat­ter is just a bunch of empty space. & we are noth­ing & every­thing at all times & no time.

Impli­ca­tions

“In one sense, each of us is an intrigu­ing, intri­cately unique indi­vid­ual, jus­ti­fi­ably proud of & in love with our own per­sonal story. In another sense, we are all one body, descended from the same pri­mor­dial mother and made of iden­ti­cal stuff-the cal­cium in all our bones and the iron in all our blood orig­i­nally forged in a red giant star that died bil­lions of years ago.” –Rob Breszny

Con­sider the weird con­cept of quan­tum non­lo­cal­ity  which says two par­ti­cles can exist in two places at the same time. Par­ti­cles are both par­ti­cles & waves simul­ta­ne­ously & they  might not exist at all unless we’re look­ing at the them. This says a lot about the role of the observer & observed: real­ity isn’t real at all unless it’s being observed & that is quite a para­dox. (See also: Schrödinger’s Cat, or don’t see him, who knows.) Real­ity accord­ing to both quan­tum physics & mys­ti­cism is a shared hallucination.

So on the one hand, the uni­verse exists. It is every­thing and every­where– “within us & with­out us.” Un-nameable & yet named as best we can. & on the other hand, the uni­verse doesn’t exist-nothing exists, the par­ti­cles aren’t there, our egos aren’t here. We’re noth­ing. Unite those hands (in med­i­ta­tion posi­tion?) & it’s the very beau­ti­ful, poetic, mys­ti­cal conun­drum we’re liv­ing in. Believ­ing in noth­ing & every­thing is the most accu­rate lie I can give to this mag­i­cal mys­tery. It’s a paradox. 

Related Posts:

• Going with the flow :: Non­lin­ear time
• Incog­nito & prac­ti­cal evolution
• You give birth to your own god
• The trust of flow
• Prin­ci­ples of Art: Art is Ulti­mately about Death