Whispering In The Wind: paradox

Friday, 27 July 2018

Self, Self, Self!

"Man's mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimension." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

A while ago I wrote a piece on paradoxical thinking. It got me to the recollection of a book I read years ago by Wayne W. Dyer, called 'You'll See It When You Believe It'. I recall being immediately reeled in just by the title, loving the direct contradiction with that old adage 'seeing is believing'. Both ideas are true, yet seem contradictory, a fitting paradox! The book does a great exploration of the concept of 'dualism' in life, a notion which I believe is fundamental to a better understanding of things..

"...get very comfortable with opposites like the following...You are both shy and aggressive within the same body. You are lazy and hardworking. You get the most when you care the least about it. The tighter you squeeze water, the less you have. The things that upset us in others are the lessons we have to learn ourselves...The dualism is always there." - Wayne W. Dyer

If you're on the same page as me you can see how the acceptance of paradox, the very embracing of its nature, can lead to a transformation in thinking. Dispel the need to cling to certainty in your life, become willing to discard your views and ways of looking at the world, as and when new information arrives, and you free the mind for limitless expansion. This 'dualism' concept, once incorporated into our thinking, opens us up to seeing a richness and diversity in our lives and in the wider world which we may not have previously even noticed, or merely only had hints of in our consciousness. It naturally follows that this also frees the heart to let in and give out more love, the love of both self and others. Transformational indeed!

There will be some who read all this stuff about self-improvement and personal growth and just dismiss it, because they feel they don't need to work on themselves. At the root of this is often the misconception that they are basically perfect. This 'perfection complex' is to be found most commonly in youth but sometimes extends into adulthood, creating people the rest of us generally find to be arrogant, self-serving and critical of everyone else. Yet it is the knowledge that the imperfections in ourselves, and others, is the really good stuff that delivers richness, nuances our lives and helps us form a truer understanding of our worlds, with the added bonus of allowing us to avoid such undesirable traits as arrogance and intolerance of others.

People who embrace the path of personal development, choosing emotional/spiritual evolution (I personally struggle with the term 'spiritual' but it is intrinsically linked) over inertia and submission to human entropy, often do so from a place of powerlessness. Whether they feel their lives are not going anywhere and are questioning why, and how to move on, or they find themselves in a dark place and need to escape, but don't know how, the overarching theme is one of a lack of personal power over their situation. The paradox is that this usually stems from a lack of awareness of just how much real power the individual has over their situation. They simply do not realise that, though difficult, all they need to do is change their thinking and they can affect fundamental change over their situation. Most wonderful of all, once on the path to personal growth, they quickly realise the power they have taken back, in the very act of pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, and in the many amazing lessons there are to be learned on that path.

"The most exquisite paradox...as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all...As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible." - Ram Dass, "Be Here Now"

A final (paradoxical) thought..

People often decide to sidestep personal growth and plough all their efforts instead into a relationship with another. The premise is simply that all the answers can be found and life can be complete once in the relationship. I know from bitter personal experience, and observation of others, of the absolute folly of this - best case scenario, you live your life through and for the other person, losing your own identity and never fulfilling your potential. Worst, and most likely outcome, the relationship is doomed to fail because you have invested everything in improving them, and as they grow you are left behind like a stunted wallflower. So remember folks, it is never a selfish act to be focused on one's own path, concentrating on improving one's self and growing as a person.

That is what it is, to be not just human, but a human being.

Monday, 9 July 2018

It Is, Is It?

I'm prone to paradoxical thinking. Since writing my first poetry, decades ago, through the ups and downs of life, right up to the here and now, I see paradoxes everywhere..

There are several ways one can define paradox. I most relate to this definition, from yourdictionary.com - a paradox is a statement that may seem absurd or contradictory but yet can be true, or at least makes sense. Paradoxes are often contrary to what is commonly believed and so play an important part in furthering our understanding in literature and everyday life, or they can simply be an entertaining brain teaser.

On the rare occasions when I review my old poetry, the raw bare bones of my life's experience, I find paradox litters the verses, and it really pleases me. I consider it a gift to be able to think this way, and as long as I've avoided delusion and confusion, paradoxical thinking has enhanced my ability to express myself in ways I could never have imagined. Much more importantly, paradoxical thinking is an intrinsic part of my thought process. It is, and probably always has been, integral to how I view my inner life and my outer world. I am definitely better off for it.

Enough blowing of one's own trumpet..

We may well all like our certainties in life, and find much comfort in choosing a side, adopting a stance or deciding upon one frame of mind over another - accepting as truth a particular way of looking at something, whilst rejecting out of hand what is contrary to that truth - but, although helpful in simplifying and clarifying things in our heads, is this actually not just closing ourselves off to the full range of possibility? Is 'certainty' not just merely another way of saying 'closed-minded'? To me, becoming 'set in my ways' is akin only to 'dying a slow death'. If I am not growing, I am dying.

By far, some of the most valuable lessons that life has taught me are; that it is only by maintaining an open mind, being as flexible as possible in the way I view the world, being mindful of the innate flaws and impediments built into the human condition, learning to accept how wrong I can be at any given time (and forgiving myself for that) and always being willing to extend myself to others and to the ever-changing nature of the world, that I can really hope to grow to become better, and maintain that growth throughout my whole life.

So, any alternative ways of framing my experience, of thinking very differently about things, has to be positive. Thinking paradoxically is one such way, and when it 'flows' out of me in the form of poetry I find it to be an amazing experience. On those aforementioned rare occasions of reading back my poems to myself, I find little gems lurking among the debris. Locks click open in my mind, the keys to which are the paradoxes I've identified in verse. The best part is that, with the passage of time and gaining of new experience, these gems shine even brighter, their meaning becomes new meaning, which in turn even inspires new thought processes, new verses, fresh creativity! A perfect antidote to the natural closing of the mind that age and bitter experience can often bring.

Here is just a handful of the myriad paradoxes which have become recurring themes for me - observations, if you will, just one man's slant on it:

Life is all endings and beginnings - we have to experience the end of something in order to start anew.
I am everything, and nothing - all I know and am is the sum total of my experience and how I feel about it, in the grand scheme of things I really know nothing.
To be humble is powerful - the more humility, respect, conscientiousness, selflessness and kindness we put out into the world, the more we get right back.
Love and hate are two sides of the same coin - To hate is merely love in reverse, and in hating we negate the possibility of love, it's a simple choice.
Everything stays the same, but different - we can stick our heads in the sand and choose not to change, but the world, the people and everything else around us always will.

The world needs fresh thinking. Our lives could definitely benefit from different perspectives. Paradoxical thinking offers a seed which develops rapidly into roots, from which whole forests can eventually grow and thrive. All it takes is for one to plant the seed.

Having green fingers always did run in our family..