Juxtaposing Paradox

Ya know, eventually it just gets to the point where all the stuff us fringe whackos have been saying for years is plain ole MSM headline news.  Eventually, I have to ask myself, "Self?  Where do you go from here?"

Not only was the answer not forthcoming, but my cat was staring at me, as if to say, "So, now you're talking to yourself?"

What's worse is that the news is coming so hot and heavy this year that one faces to problem of having too much to say, rather than too little.  I am reminded constantly of William Wordsworth's brief but powerful poem:

The world is too much with us; late and soon, 

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— 

Little we see in Nature that is ours; 

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! 

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; 

The winds that will be howling at all hours, 

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; 

For this, for everything, we are out of tune; 

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be 

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; 

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; 

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

The constant clamor of modern society is enough to drive one to the jungle.  At least there, life is more direct and simple: survive.  Fighting with bats and monkeys for a hand of bananas seems a bit more direct and one can easily understand both the goal and the means.

Any more, it is impossible to discern motives.  Of Friday night, when the Turkish military attempted to oust Erdogan, one begins to hope that something random has entered our entirely too ordered sphere.  Within hours though, it is cast down and quickly the speculation begins that Erdogan staged his own coup in order to separate the loyalists from the insurgents.  

This is typical of today's world.  No one seems to have a grasp on what exactly is going on.  What seems clear is that the world is rushing head-long into another major war.  Even now, the pieces are in place.  The social disruptions in the US and EU/UK.  The territorial saber-rattling in Asia over the South China Sea.  The tempests of teetering South American economies and governments.  It's as if someone has thrown a switch in the past year or so and set off a series of Rube Goldberg mouse traps.

The plot twists of recent history are becoming tiresome.  It's like Lawrence Kasdan's flick Body Heat, the viewer is plumb worn out by the end from all the twists and surprises.  Just when you think you have a handle on what's going on, the rug gets yanked out from under you - over and over again.

Prime example: Trump picks Pence as running mate.  Huh?!  That's like oil choosing water as a mixer.  There may be some wisdom to this, but one of the words I don't associate with Trump is "wisdom."  "Bull in a china shop" is more likely to come to mind.

Just now, another fine film metaphor comes to mind: David Lynch's Blue Velvet.  The opening scene shows us an idyllic montage of small-town America.  A man is watering his picture-perfect garden, with white picket fence and swelling sentimental theme.  Suddenly, the man has an aneurysm, falls dead, and the camera tracks beneath the Chem-Lawn surface to the grotesque insect wars lurking just beneath.  It's one of those perfect visual queues that tells an entire story in a few brief frames.

Like the Fourth Principle in the Kybalion, we are being forced to reconcile polar opposites.  Eventually, a circle comes back on itself.  There is no true paradox.  At some level, the world appears to be an Hermetic working.  Nothing else explains entirely the sheer depth and breadth of contradictions to be found.

We are asked on a regular basis to hold mutually exclusive thoughts and to believe both with firm resolve.  Black is white, and white is black.  This is best shown in the two color palettes.  In the additive (light) palette, all colors mixed equally become white.  In the subtractive (pigment) palette, the complete lack of color gives us white.  It is at once a contradiction and a tautology.

As we plow forward into the undisturbed soil of future tense, we would do well to watch our backs.  Like the god Janus, we must be of two minds and two faces at all times..  This is a doubly apt metaphor, since Janus is the god of gateways and threshholds.  As we enter somewhere, we are also mindful of where we have come from and the dichotomy of inner and outer spaces.

There is no contradiction but the one we create with our beliefs.