Reality is a Paradox

A paradox: a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well-founded or true.

So it is an idea that first seems to have no business being true but then is. It is true because as you go down the rabbit hole of thought, your mind confines its sight to the mud and dirt around it, and forgets the rest.

“I am happy. Look at me, I am happy. I feel happy. I AM HAPPY!”

Does that sound convincing? Do you believe me when I say that? Do you find it to be true or fake? Genuine or false?

Interestingly, we equate the two. True=Genuine. False=Faked. Is there such a thing?

Genuine: truly what something is said to be; authentic… it is in the definition. Genuine is the act of being true. Well… that doesn’t really help. Let’s try faked.

Faked: forge or counterfeit (something). So fake is forged from what? What could be used in the process of creating something that is not true?

True comes from ourselves. We are being true when we are listening and acting to what our inner self is telling us. I am a genuine human when I act in a way that my inner authentic self is guiding me, rather than the norms and pressures that push one way or the other.

I wonder though, since that is my genuine tendency, whether we really can separate ourselves from the world around us. Can I really be free from the expectations put on me before birth due to one body part? Does there really exist a true identity that I can reference in hopes of feeling pure? And can I really be free of the falsehoods and misconceptions my genetics have imbedded within to maintain sanity? Uncomfortably, I feel obligated to respond with, “no”.

I don’t believe there can be a “true self”. I find it very unlikely that there can be a core version of ourselves that exists past all the bullshit that surrounds us. So in other words… we are a part of the bullshit.

A beautiful quote I found that refers to this idea is by David Hume. This early 1700’s philosopher said, “we are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and movement”. In short, Hume believed that every human is a sum of its perceived surroundings and changing tendencies.

Therefore, what is true? If everything we are manifested from comes from the things around and inside us, then is it any more true than anything else? Is there really an objective truth, or does there exist a sum of subjective falsehoods that come together into one line of thinking in order for everything to make sense? And when I say it like that… it certainly doesn’t sound very genuine.

Yet we should not go down this rabbit hole without looking down the others first. If nothing is true, then why do things feel true? Well, there are a number of ways of explaining this idea (which I attempt to do in the hyperlinks at the beginning of the post), but I will try to do it in a simple way. Some things feel true, and others feel false because we are all biased.

We have all gone down some type of line of thinking about the world and ourselves. None of which is necessarily more true than the other, but feel more true due to our desire for it to be true. Whether that desire by conscious or subconscious, good or bad, it’s all the same, we biasedly want it to be true. To finish this loop of thinking, our bias comes when our flowing perception of self-concept as we identify ourselves differently with every experience throughout life.

So, I AM HAPPY!!!! Is it convincing enough? If not for you, is it enough for me? Can I believe something until it is true for myself, and only then will it become genuine and true?

The truth that I see is that everything is a paradox. Nothing makes sense or is true until we proclaim it to be. And once we have done so, it is then indefinitely that way… well until we say otherwise. And the moments before we biasedly accept something to be true in our world, it is a paradox. Not because the idea or experience is seemingly absurd or self-contradictory at first and then understood. It is instead because we find it to be absurd and then we contradict ourselves and call it certainly true. The idea never changes, we simply do.