Paradox

We live in a paradoxical, ironic world in which physics says light can be both a particle and a wave—both a particle and a wave, not either a particle or a wave.  Linking two apparently contradictory points of view, creates irony and a paradox.  ‘Apparently’ contradictory because like Democrats and Republicans, they are really the yin and yang of US politics, needing each other to be who each is, and together representing most of the electorate.

The first reaction to a paradox is to attempt to disprove one half of it, then make the remaining half the absolute truth.  We do this because we have been taught either/or thinking, instead of both/and thinking, and that what’s true is true and what’s false is false.  This kind of black or white thinking is barely descriptive at the extremes of the continuum, but leaves out the shades of grey in the middle. 

To have a world that works for everybody and everything we have to first recognize that it’ll be a paradoxical, both/and, all inclusive world, filled with ironies; then we’ll have to check our first reaction to the paradoxes within and around us, shift from either/or thinking to both/and thinking and stop seeking to make one side the angels and the other side the devils.