If a man says he is lying, is he telling the truth? ~ Epimenodes
I still remember the first time I ever heard a paradox: I was 14 years old, reading a book, and came across Socrates famous quote; “I know that I know nothing”.
In that moment something “clicked” in my brain. Up until that point I had held all thoughts as absolute. I was convinced that once you believed in something, its opposite would be automatically discarded. But after reading these 6 famous words of Socrates I suddenly realized something important: two seemingly contradicting statements can be equally correct.
How bizarre, and what an odd faux pas of logic! The paradox both felt like a glitch, a logical slip-up, but deep down beyond the veneer of rationale it felt right. It felt undeniably, irrevocably true. I was fascinated.
The wisdom of paradoxes is that they transcend out thought system, they are in tune not just with logical intelligence, but with existential wisdom that is at the roots of every deep and meaningful personal discovery.
Up until this day, the deeper I’ve ventured into the inner exploration of myself, the practice of soulwork, the more wisdom I found in paradoxes. In this article, I will explore some of the most essential paradoxes that have revolutionized my life and the way I see things.
1. The Pursuit of Happiness Makes You Unhappy
America’s Declaration of Independence declares that it is in every man’s birthright to seek for: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
One important thing I have learnt on my journey of inner-exploration is that happiness can never be pursued. The more you chase it, the more it runs away. Pursuing happiness makes you anxious and frustrated. In fact, happiness only comes when you’re relaxed, when you’re not pursuing it, and it’s always the by-product of another activity – usually something that brings meaning or joy to our lives.
2. Freedom Can Be Enslaving
In the words of Russian poet Aleksey Khomyakov:
Modern Society in its decay releases every individual to the freedom of his own impotence.
Freedom is often a burden for people. Why? It’s because freedom provides just as much frustration as it alleviates. When you are entirely responsible for your actions, it places the whole blame of your decisions on your own individual shoulders.
In the Western world we all have endless freedom and opportunities, and the pressure to make the most of all the thousands of possibilities open to us can be quite intimidating and imprisoning.
3. Words Are Spoken By The Listener
All too often we get upset because other people break our trust or misunderstand us. But the problem we have is that we tend to assume that whatever we say is perfectly understood and perfectly projected, reflecting our thoughts and feelings in fine precision.
The truth is that words are the most complex, arbitrary, relative and symbolic forms of communication. Furthermore, each of us have different definitions based upon our own unique experiences and associations with each word we come across. So in essence … you may provide the words, but the listener always provides the definitions.
4. Solitude Makes You More Companionable
I often find that many people become very surprised by how quickly and comfortably they open up to me about personal matters in our first encounter. Why? The secret lies in how comfortable you are in your own aloneness.
People who can’t be ‘alone’, feel ‘lonely‘ and use each other to fill their inner voids. People who aren’t comfortable with inner Solitude impatiently wait for their turn to speak in conversations, or are anxious and nervous when there are prolonged periods of silence. Being comfortable in Solitude centers you, and people can sense this in your presence, in essence making you more companionable.
5. Social Media Disconnects Us
This is the paradox of our 21st century culture: more and more people complain about feelings of loneliness. Sure, technology has made it easier to connect with thousands of people, but this is at the cost of sacrificing a quality of connection with those around us. Essentially: we know more about our friends by spending less time with them.
More importantly, this constant bombardment of stimulation is disconnecting us from ourselves by causing us to always focus externally, rather than encouraging us to explore within.
6. Wanting To Be Normal Is Abnormal
Your normal job is a draining 50 years of work unrelated to your true passions. Normal health and eating habits are pretty bad as well, while financially the normal debt you have in your bank account will force you to continue your dispassionate, normal job.
Normal marriages are statistically bound for failure, while your normal lack of self-exploration leads to a personally unfulfilled and emotionally-reactive life. Normal ideologies will maintain the financial inequality and fanatical dogmatic wars and horrors in the world. All of this really makes you wonder … what’s so great about being normal?
7. The Larger The Collective, The Smaller The Individual
Collective groups do not exist. Groups are symbolic words for a gathering of individuals. Too often we’ve been taught that individuals are part of collectives.
Throughout history the individual’s freedom or life has been sacrificed in the name of group ideologies; mainly those of nations, social statuses and religions. Real individuals should not be sacrificed for unreal ideologies.
8. The Only Certainty Is Uncertainty
Life is a constant of change; in essence it’s always fluctuating. We perceive life to be static energy, but at a quantum level the movements of life are unpredictable. Life is constantly renewing itself; not even for a single moment is it ever the same.
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The beauty of realizing that life is uncertain and unpredictable is that we can overcome our misguided attempts to predict and control our lives and the lives of others. The only certainty in life is uncertainty, and the more we fight and resist this truth, the more anxiety and pain we create for ourselves.
***
Did this article stimulate any interesting thoughts within you? Do you have any experiences or insights of your own to share? I look forward to reading some of the paradoxes you have discovered in your own life below!
Here in the USA, there are many people that feel that to be safe we must pass laws to ensure freedom. I agree that there needs to be some basis for what Government must do to support people but there is no way anyone could ever read and understand all the laws on the books now. All my life I worked hard to be able to retire with some dignity and a good lifestyle. That was my goal and in the end I have succeeded. This was an interesting read and I will share it with my son.
Hola Dennis,
You’re entirely correct, you’d have to be a lawyer to even remotely understand most laws. I agree there must be some structure to manage a society but we really need to rethink how that structure is managed.
My proposition would be to initially reduce the sizes of the groups that are managed; managing millions of people under the same faceless structure is impossible to do at a sensitive level. Some cultures in antiquity would share a board of power that was selected every year from the people of the community which allowed constantly new ideas being implemented and prevented any monopolizing of power as is happening today with the top 2%.
I’m happy to hear you’ve accomplished your dream of retiring in dignity and with a good lifestyle; I really hope more people will be capable of doing that as we progress in our collective evolution.
Thank you for sharing your experience with this.
Hey there, You have done an excellent job. I’ll certainly digg it and personally recommend to my friends. I’m confident they will be benefited from this web site.
what to say, you got all, i read j krishnamurti, u g krishnamurti, osho, alan watts, socrates, confucius, budhha, quiet (susan cain) and many more, and i must say you are core of these, i am learning from you about myself, for eg. empath, hsp, old soul etc, great job, keep going, and thank you very much…. don Mateo Sol
Hola Anonymous,
Thank you so much for your kind words. Those all are greater masters and authors so it is humbling to contribute my own work to the same cause they have.
The process of evolution is that of integrating what has been and transforming it into the next stage. None of my work would be possible without the influence and expansion they had on the collective conscious evolution of society.
As Newton put it; “The only reason I can see so far is because I have stood in the shoulders of giants.”
So I only discovered this site the other night and have proceeded to geek out about all the philosophy and process of involution which I have basically already gone through out of personal principle. It’s very reassuring I’m not the only young adult from this century obsessed with this kind of stuff on such a personal level :) restores some of my faith in humanity, or at least for a few of us lone wolfs anyway!
Hola Taber,
It’s always wonderful to find a new reader who has found solace in our work; I can only wonder how isolated the lone wolves of past generations must have felt when the internet was not available.
Involution is our contribution to the growing movements that exists; we live in exciting times where technology is growing and making us all to aware of how empty our lives are becoming.
I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts and experiences in future articles.
What a thought-provoking article, thank you! I especially like points no. 4 and 6. Oh, to be “comfortable in solitude”, I’d love to be able to do that. Any advice for how I could feel more comfortable and happy being alone with myself? If you have others articles on your website regarding this topic, I’d love to learn more! :)
Thank you Michaela, I’m happy to hear you enjoyed the article :). I wrote about benefits of solitude a few months ago: https://lonerwolf.com/modern-art-of-solitude/ but my advice on how to cultivate it would simply be to spend time in your own company.
Pick a hobby or activity where you dedicate everyday to spending time alone. It can be going on walks by yourself, gardening, sitting down and writing your inner most thoughts, meditating, or maybe even sitting down in a park and just watch life unfold.
Thoughts, emotions, many things will arise within you when you’re not over stimulating your brain with task oriented jobs that serve to distract you from your inner most self. You’ll learn much about yourself which will help you to enjoy your own company more.
I hope that helps, let me know if I you have any other questions.
Warmly,
Sol
Thank you so much for the reply, Sol!
I’ve always spent most of my time alone, I love reading and writing – those are probably the perfect hobbies for enjoying solitude.
However, as I’m quite isolated socially, I find myself feeling lonely more and more often … (At least I interpret the feeling as one of “loneliness”.)
I’d love to feel completely comfortable and “okay” with myself. As you’ve written in the article you mentioned (The Art of Solitude), I don’t want to seek out any kind of social contacts feeling “needy” and depending on other people.
Any idea how I could sort of “progress” to the next level of feeling comfortable with (only) my own company?
Anyway, thank you so much for the inspiring thoughts – I’m happy to have stumbled upon this website!
Best Regards
Michaela (Germany)
Your more than welcome Michaela :).
I understand what you mean; to be alone is not the same as to be lonely, and often we must learn to be alone without that feeling of loneliness.
In this case what you need to find our is why it is that you feel ‘lonely’. This requires self-exploration, asking yourself what exactly you expect from life, what you secretly want.
Feelings of loneliness come because we unconsciously want to be part of a group of friends, we want to find a soul mate or or we want to feel understood by someone.
It’s perfectly naturally to want the company of another human being, at least one other person who truly gets us. If you’re already capable of enjoying your own solitude with all those hobbies then you already possess a richness that is worth sharing with others.
Sometimes are desire to be with others comes from an inner wealth, of wanting to share the richness we’ve acquired in solitude with other people. To see them happy because we share what makes us happy is one of the greatest pleasures in life :D
Let me know if this answers your question. :)
Thank you, Sol!
You are right, I would love to share more with others and I would love to give more. I would like to be more understood and find a person who is in some way a kindred spirit. However, since this seems impossible (I haven’t ever met a person like that), I guess my question is: Can I let go of that need to share/connect and learn to be content with (only) myself? Or maybe: Can I find different ways to connect with others?
I’m not quite sure myself what it is that I really miss and what’s at the root of my “loneliness” problem.
But thank you for “listening” and thank you for understanding how I feel – I appreciate that a lot!
Allow it some time Michaela, you never know when that person might come into your life.
But it in regards to your question, yes there is ways to let go of the needs to share and connect with others. That is where our concepts of Involution play a big role. This longing to connect with others is an emotion that arises within us. A desire to share and express with another being like us.
If you are capable of identifying the emotion within you, and separating yourself from it, realizing that you are not that emotion just as much as you are not the thoughts that float in your mind; you will experience a liberation from this nagging feeling.
Then this feeling to connect will be fulfilled simply by connecting with nature, connecting with animals, connecting with all that is alive around you. Your mind feels lonely because it wants to connect with people like you, who think like you do, feel like you do about aspects of life, like what you like etc…but that is only a desire to connect on an intellectual level.
Your being has the capacity to connect with everything that is alive, everything and everyone that you come in contact with. You can be an immense crowd of people and still feel “lonely” because none of those people truly understands you. Or you can be entirely alone in a park but have no feelings of loneliness because your soul, your being, what ever it is you want to call it, feels vibrant, in-tune and alive with your surroundings.
For this much spiritual work is necessary, it’s not like a simply psychological problem that can be solved with types of “therapy” or advice on do this or do that. All you can do is aspire to continue your spiritual efforts, to go deeper and beyond your self; meditation, spiritual journeys, trance dance all these things and more will provide you with the capacity to catch “glimpses” of this inner quiet state of separation from your desires, emotions and thoughts.
It’s a difficult journey but one that is filled with immense depth and joy that would otherwise go on unknown.
Sol, this is exactly what I wanted to hear – thank you! :)
I’m going to try identifying that emotion and separating myself from it, finding connection in different ways maybe … doesn’t sound like an easy task but I’d like to see how it works for me.
Thanks for taking the time to help me see more clearly about this issue, I appreciate it.
I wish you the best in your journey and remember that you’re not alone in it. It may be a solitary path of introspection and understanding but know that others as well have been down the same path and can help you if you stumble across any road blocks.
I look forward to hearing of your progression :).
Quantum living is dynamic and ultimately predictable at the cost of nothing. Just cause for this has been proven in the financially superior emotionally bankrupt and vice versa. I have a more correct tangent: a life well lived inwardly is a life well seen outwardly. There is no situation that cannot be not is there a situation that has not been. We will live abundantly and be, when we can be abundance no longer eludes the individual. Whatever is before me will not steal my focus when my purpose is not my goal. To exist completely no matter what: to be or not to be, not as a question or a goal but instead as the fact. Choice is more than an option it is the validity of being. Help if you see a need. Thanks for some more discretion, revealing truth is my fun, facts credit wisdom, add value to knowledge, and increase intellect. I appreciate what you do for me. We should sharpen swords someday, or rather regularly.
Hola Earl,
It’s great users like you who make our community thrive by sharing your own wisdom and self-discoveries through immense exploration of your inner being.
There’s quite a few good paradoxes there that one can muse on in significant depth. I thank you for contributing them, your effort is appreciated :).
As I turned 20, I had a pretty good job and made some money
and since I live in the middle east in a very conservative society, my family was expecting me to buy a home and marry and all
I just thought for a while, if I started this, it won’t stop
I will be simply not alive
I decided to start traveling and seeing other people and learning
I work to make some money then I keep on traveling, learning mechanics and music which I like much
although this is not guaranteeing me good relationship with people over here
people won’t accept you if you don’t act as they do
Hola Mustafa,
I applaud your desire for true authenticity, to stay true to yourself without allowing the influences of your family or culture to dictate how it is you should life your life.
Travel, see the world, expand your perspectives and that will expand the way you look at the world, that experience will be more valuable than any house, any respect from your peers or family. Because in that experience you will find depth, you will find truth, not just copying superficially what people think you should be like, but truly understanding the world with a greater insight.
Stay strong, and continue through your path, where ever that might take you :).
Number 4 was an absolute eye opener! I really relate to that one. It often throws me when people say I’m very easy to talk to, or very easy to open up to, and how they’ll tell me things they won’t tell anyone else.
It’s an enormous advantage to have as a teacher, as you can get to know your students better and become more understanding of and reactive toward their life situations without actively probing. But I never really knew what it was about me that made me seem like such a ‘safe’ person to open up to. Perhaps it is people people can sense that acceptance I have for myself, and it gives them an unconscious vibe that I’ll accept them as well.
Hola Kaylene,
That’s exactly it, being a teacher as an Old Soul is one of the best mixture of qualities to possess. In fact many teachers are not made to teach, they lack the awareness, the ability to be in tune with their students and put the students off completely from the subject, the actual opposite of what you’d like to achieve.
If you allow your being, your presence, to be the message instead of your words; then others around you will immediately feel that, if only intuitively. I applaud your efforts as a teacher and your embracing of this gift of yours that will be so useful :).
I wanted to Thank You for writing this. For the longest time the more I tried to be less egoic, the angrier I would become. After reading this I don’t talk myself out of anything anymore, I just acknowledge how I feel,accept it, and then ride it out till it disapates.If I don’t try and control it, it won’t control me. I can feel myself slowly beginning to soften, so..thank you, I hope you realize that you writing this is bringing me back to a sense of peace for what I felt like broke me.
Hola Jesse,
I’ve explored similar struggles in the past that while I found difficult I also found fascinating to observe how these dichotomy’s would seem to expand the more I tried to forcefully take one side or the other.
It was due to this that some of the truth’s I learned as a child to harmonize your inner energies became much more clearer and useful. I explained it in a bit more detail in this article: https://lonerwolf.com/whole/ which you might find helpful.
Thank you for taking the time to share your paradoxical experiences, I enjoy hearing our readers similar stories.
We live to die.
Simple and beautiful. I’d re-word it slightly to “We Live and Die” because the moment you’re born is the moment you also accept death as part of the package. They arise mutually. :)
I thought about this in a little different way some years ago:
“The disease we’re dying from is life itself.”
or
“The moment you’re entering the world you’re starting to die.”
So stay healthy and die longer! :)
But in my opinion these are just the physical aspects.
Life is a sexually transmitted disease with 100 mortality rate :).
I wouldn’t call it a disease as it implies something negative. Life is another word for death, they are both the same thing. Life is the slow process of death, that’s all. But in this process, there is immense beauty, immense experiences to be lived, to be enjoyed. It’s a gift, and how can one complain about the restrictions the gift we never really asked for, brings?
Indeed, they are physical aspects, but they help the soul lose it’s fears, it’s attachment to the death event. :)
Wonderful read. On the nose.
Gracias Sasha!
a good read ! i would add one more
” we don’t want to live until we find something to die for “
Hola sushma,
I’m glad you liked the article. That’s a great paradox, thank you for sharing it! :)
#child is the father of the man
#people love back the persons those who hate them
#why a lover extremely lovable but rest of humanity is just neglected?
#we’ll all meet in heaven….then why we live separately on earth?
I like your paradoxical contributions sunny :D, well done!
Paradox #2 – this stinks of communism OR ‘I submit to gwad because I can’t be responsible for my actions = slavery’. Responsibility to the responsible. This is hard, yet liberty can come ONLY when one is in (almost) total control of one’s life. The weak, the meek, the timid – they have been indoctrinated with christian dogmas of servitude, and so they become servants. How does this influence their self-image? Or, should I ask, do they even perceive themselves as separate individuals? After all, christianity is a collective religion. Serve others, not thyself – because if, than you’re selfish. Now, the question appears – if we don’t have something, how are we suppose to give it to somebody?
Paradox #4 – perfect! If one can serve oneself, what he or she has gained can (and even SHOULD) further share with others.
Paradox #7 – oh how true, yet collective philosophies, religions and other sects will tell you ‘you are a part of the whole, a child of the universe’. Externalists prefer to submit to arbitrarily imposed ‘authorities’ without questioning them (because if they do, it is called a SIN). Such people fail to find their INNER richness, hence they BECOME ‘a’ part of the collective, ‘willingly’ forfeiting their selves.
Paradox #8 – hehe, interesting that you put this here :P Ovidian ‘Omnia mutantur, nihil interit’, Heraclitean ‘panta rei’. One thing that is certain is also CHANGE as well as CYCLICAL time. From the cycles of the heavens (annual path of the Sun through the 12 zodiac signs) to women menstrual cycle. Which is why the final constant is INFINITY. And here are the reference – 8 turned on its side is the sign of infinity; the 8th zodiac sign is Scorpio, the sign of depth, death and rebirth. Those are the reasons why your order for me is so beautiful ^^
Yeah, this Soli / Lunar blog is what I needed (don’t know how MUCH though, but I did) =]
Hello Typhon!,
I very much enjoyed your commentary on each one of the paradoxes :). There’s something awfully enjoyable about seeing readers expand and demonstrate that they too have observed and experienced the same things by sharing their own bit of insight into the topics of the articles.
You raise a lot of interesting points that I’m sure many will be as amused as I have been reading them after finishing the article. I’m also happy there’s a few astrology connoisseurs within our readers, and those subtle details don’t go unnoticed.
Thank you, for commenting !
Good read, but I disagree with number 2. Nothing is wrong with freedom, but most people don’t really have it. Living in America doesn’t = freedom. You could be a slave to your job, your social status, your debt, the responsibilities that you are forced to do, that you might not really want to do. Most people are not free because they are doing what they were told they had to do without question. Number 2 was written by a Russian living under a communist state. What could he possible know about freedom other then what he was told?
We like to think that freedom was taken away from us, that society is the evil monster that conditioned us all and to some degree that is true.
But society is not an entity separate from us, we form society. We all have the freedom of realizing our potential, of digging deeper into our spirits, into spiritual teachings and works but we choose not to.
A great amount of people are afraid of freedom. The world hunger could stop tomorrow if we wanted to, if we chose to divide the worlds assets equally amongst everyone. But then what? Why would people work except for the desire of power and prestige? What would everyone do? Struggle towards?
Freedom is uncertain, you don’t know what to expect from it. Most people would rather deal with a headache that they know instead of risking trading that headache for something like a foot ache. At least they know what to expect from the headache, but the foot ache is too unpredictable, maybe it will be worse than the headache.
On LonerWolf we write many articles, some feel-good ones, others more dryer and involving different methods of self-growth and Involution. You’ll notice which articles get more likes and comments … We have the freedom to choose between comfortable entertainment and something that will shake around our lives and create changes that are uncertain to us, which will be more popular?
Freedom requires courage. Freedom requires an immense dissatisfaction with the state of your life and many things you see around you. Freedom requires non-attachment to beliefs and ideologies. Everyone is born with the capacity for freedom, but not everyone wants it bad enough.
“Number 2 was written by a Russian living under a communist state”
Yo Willy Boy! Khomyakov lived before the Russian Revolution. Next time, do your research! Check yo’self boy!
“It costs us a fortune to keep Gandhi poor”
Maintaining Gandhi’s sizable retinue, busy compound — simply “keeping up appearances” — required regular donations from billionaire industrialists.
Hahaha that’s a good one, I’ve always felt Gandhi was a master of ethos.
His personal life is plagued with events where he acted in ways that would contradict his otherwise, intelligently non resistant selfless image. One of his biographies mentions he kicked his pregnant wife out in a cold winter night because she refused to clean the bathroom. Or passively manifested (through a hunger strike) his disappointment in his sons desires to marry his secretary.
Thank you for sharing :)
I agree with most of these, but really disagree with #2. The statement of “When you are entirely responsible for your actions, it places the whole blame of your decisions on your own individual shoulders” is about as ludicrous as one can be. I am entirely responsible for my actions and if I succeed or fail, the whole blame of my decisions should be on my shoulders. Do you want someone else to be responsible for your decisions? Do you want someone else to be responsible for your happiness? I would answer no. We need more personal responsibility in this world, not less. We need fewer people who think the world owes them something, not more.
Hi Rob,
I entirely agree with what you said, I think you misread my intentions when I pointed out that paradox. The whole concept of Involution revolves are personal accountability, love and respect for yourself.
My intentions were to convey how I have observed, whenever you give a lot of personal freedom to some people, they begin to feel overwhelmed by that freedom and prefer to blame someone else or believe in something greater, so that it takes the pressure of their failures off of them.
Thank you for commenting !
about #2: you could also make a case that this one ties into the phenomenon of paralysis by choice; the burden of having too many choices.
That’s very true Ron, I was thinking of that paradox for a future article after watching that great TED talk on the topic . :)
Question for paradox #4: I’m pretty comfortable with solitude, and silence when I’m alone. It’s when I’m with people that I manifest the same tendancies one would categorize as the fear of silence. Examples: Still await impatiently my turn in the conversation, still find silence uncomfortable when with people. What could that suggest, that I’m not totally comfortable with silence, even when alone?
Hi Lykourgus,
That’s a good question. The fear of silence in conversations you are talking about doesn’t have to do with fear of silence so much as it has to do with your concern with how you are perceived by others, your ego feels nervous of making the other person feeling uncomfortable or you looking stupid in the other persons eyes.
For many people, silence is uncomfortable, because others don’t know what you’re thinking when you’re silent, or they might attribute the silence to your lack of things to say, assuming that you might be stupid.
So these things are always worth keeping in mind when self-exploring and asking yourself why it is we have the uncontrollable urge to fill in those conversational “awkward” silences with even the most banal of comments.
Thank you for commenting!
Only by admitting powerlessness do we gain power. The paradox at the heart of the success of 12 step programs. When the paradox is embraced – admit my slavery to– the beginning of freedom.
“Only by admitting powerlessness do we gain power.” That is true indeed. I’ve observed it as well often in people, that once you put your ego aside and accept you humility, then you are capable of building something new. But the first step is always the destruction, the clearing of the landscape from false power and control illusions to plan our new structure.
Great insight!
I love this article… so powerful. Reminds of the fact that the older I get the less I know. I remember when I was around 20 I thought i had worked life out. Everything was black and white, the older I get I see more and more grey.
Hello Keith!
It’s a very true aspect of life, the more we grow (albeit, with an open minded look on life), the more and more we see that the world doesn’t work in extremes and absolutes. I’ve noticed the wiser people in life tend to use words like “maybe”, “perhaps”, “probably” because the deeper the dig into their thoughts, the less certain they are of anything.
Often it makes them come across as doubtful people, it’s hard to trust someone who uses those words. On the opposite end you’ll find fanatical dictator minded people who seem to be absolutely certain about whatever it is their preaching, and make themselves easier to trust.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! :)