Episode 45: The Paradox

The Paradox of Existence.

In this latest edition of the RogueCast, I ramble around Colwick Park and consider the paradoxical nature of existence.

“The ancient Greeks were well aware that a paradox can take us outside our usual way of thinking. They combined the prefix para- (“beyond” or “outside of”) with the verb dokein (“to think”), forming paradoxos, an adjective meaning “contrary to expectation.” Latin speakers used that word as the basis for a noun paradoxum, which English speakers borrowed during the 1500s to create paradox.” Source: Merriam Webster Dictionary

 

I begin the ramble by considering the paradoxical nature of government – which means to control the mind – the less self-disciplined an individual is in his ability to control his own mind (by which I mean able to think critically and be able to drop the false thoughts that pop into his brain-receiver and, thereby, attain mastery over his egoic-emotions), the more able is external government to come in and take control on his behalf. Viz: he is deemed to be a foolish child/idiot who needs the big-daddy state to step in at every level and handle his affairs by way of imposing a plethora of legal diktats over him and, of course, the wider populace under the notion that ‘it’s for his own good.’

This paradox is clear: the more mental-control a man exerts over himself, the more freedom from outside tyranny he has.

“The paradox to take home is that when one wants it all, one ends up with nothing; yet when one wants nothing, one can then attain it all. Freedom.”

Life is a glittering paradox and the world is the stage on which we each play our roles; a shimmering splendid creation, a sometimes seemingly incomprehensible platform of order and chaos, onto which we enter and exit, into which we pop in, inhaling our first, and from which we pop off, exhaling our final breaths, resplendent with as much meaning and meaninglessness as we perceive, empty and full, triumphant and defeated, each to our parts, each to the roles we play. Singularly one, yet always connected – to those who are here and those that have departed and to the ineffable source of all that is.

In his book-of-the-damned Charles Fort makes it clear that existence itself is paradoxical,

“… our whole “existence” is a striving for the positive state. The amazing paradox of it all:
That all things are trying to become the universal by excluding other things.” p11

“Adjustment is another name for Equilibrium. Equilibrium is the Universal, or that which has nothing external to derange it.”

Charles Fort wrote with a paradoxical mindset and literary panache that to some readers may be infuriating but, to others, is delightfully witty and a supreme reflection of the nature of our sepia-tinged experience as we sojourn through this realm. A realm which Christ claimed to be “in but not of”.

This is my favourite quotation in which Fort points out the nonsense of scientism and all the reams of hogwash that are pumped into the brain-receivers of the uncritical thinker,

“Nothing has ever been finally found out. Because there is nothing final to find out.
It’s like looking for a needle that no one ever lost in a haystack that never was.

But that all scientific attempts really to find out something, whereas really there is nothing to find out, are attempts, themselves, really to be something.”

 

Charles Fort understood the hide and seek quality of this realm, one in which we seek whilst others hide.

The more I learn, the more I realise how little I know – but, with that paradoxical knowledge there comes a lightening of the load, a lightness of spirit which makes me laugh. It is a hopeless quest indeed, which reminds me of Fort’s comment,

“A seeker of Truth. He will never find it. But the dimmest of possibilities— he may himself become Truth.”

 

Once the paradoxical nature of existence is grasped fully, the individual may go mad but on the other hand, he may experience a playfulness of spirit that sits easily within him. After all,

[…] in general metaphysical terms, our expression is that, like a purgatory, all that is commonly called “existence,” which we call Intermediateness, is quasi-existence, neither real nor unreal, but expression of attempt to become real, or to generate for or recruit a real existence.”

Much love and appreciation to those who bought me several coffees – Lynne, Ellen, Sue Newsome, Jane Edmonds, Steve and Wendy. Thank you very much for you kindness and your insights.

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Further listening: the Sheep Farm Podcast