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Tag: paradox

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    Reconsidering the binary: going meta

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    1–2 minutes

    Once we recognize a binary at play, we invoke a “meta-move” to consider more open possibilities, a third or fourth option as a creatively broader field.

    The more philosophical option (truly meta) is to consider that there has always been only one thing: one object or entity that is divided in itself. The seeming problem (binary or ternary) is an inherent antagonism necessary for the entity to remain functional. There is no escape into a third or fourth solution, merely higher levels of realization.

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    On joy

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    1–2 minutes

    Michelob Ultra’s advertising slogan, “It’s only worth it if you enjoy it,” encapsulates hedonism as transactional: Pleasure is why we work. The effort is mapped onto desire gratification (a dodgy target), and a measure of pleasure is the payout.

    Yet, true enjoyment transcends selfishness or one-to-one zero-sum transactions: joy most often arrives in communal moments of excess, allowing joy to spill over and spread without effort.

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    chicken or egg wisdom

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    1–2 minutes

    Almost every problem has a “chicken or egg” framing we trot out as needed.
    “My depression caused my bad life” can easily be inverted to “My bad life caused my depression,” proving we situationally assign causation.

    While we naturally tend to the binary format (“Politically, is the populace crazy (them), or am I out of touch with reality (me)?”), it obfuscates complexity for a didactic, hyperbolic simplicity akin to some of the most insightful religious teachings (“The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”)

    It sounds like considerable wisdom to invert causation or status, to reveal a new perspective, when it is often simply untrue, and yet it fulfills a desire for the world to be different.

    Instead of this quasi-linear thinking in which we swap positions (chicken/egg is really egg/chicken), we can release the binary and consider a vast complex of several self-reinforcing cycles. These are generative network effects, with conditions co-arising and evolving beyond our seemingly insightful reductive inversions.

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    individualism or tribalism

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    1–2 minutes

    Over-individualism breeds alienation, while reactionary tribalism fails to foster authentic communities.

    Modern individuality is hollow, shaped by capitalist forces that commodify identity, leaving us neither as “genuine individuals” nor members of cohesive communities. Instead, we inhabit a "flattened society" of performative roles and narrow, market-defined behaviors.

    Even contrarian tribalism, while offering relief from the anxiety of self-definition, often mirrors the same consumerist logic it seeks to escape. It fragments individuals into insular groups, perpetuating division.

    Both trends—over-individualism and tribalism—separate us without cultivating the depth of selfhood or stabilizing community needed to resolve our ennui, melancholy, rage, despair, or loneliness.

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    intermittent reinforcement

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    1–2 minutes

    Humans are built with strange behavior mechanisms, such as intermittent reinforcement (aka variable ratio reinforcement schedule).

    Inconsistency of love or affection creates a perversely strong psychological bond: seeking rewards from inconsistent sources strengthens and intensifies the subjective value of the reward when it arrives. The doubt you will receive it, despite your efforts, introduces an intense thrill when it is attained.

    When easier access surrounds you, yet you choose the method of chance, difficulty, and pain, you obstinately rewire your brain to aggrandize a common reward. You now find joyful pride and a sense of achievement, as if you did good work when you are foolishly returning to a dried-up well.

    Yet, in relationships, it is the relief of anxiety in the relationship bond that makes you think it is actually love or affection: relief that you are indeed worth consideration is mistaken for love.

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    to increase your agency is to become complicit

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    1–2 minutes

    To increase your agency within a system is to align more fully with it: power is achieved through functional value, which is making yourself available for use.

    As this exchange occurs, there is less separation between you (subject) and task/society/economics (object). This merged state, a synthesis of mutual need, flattens you into passive codependency. Agency (the power to enact change) within the system is counterbalanced by the system’s pacifying, enabling support, which makes you less you (subject) and more it (object).

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    vitriolic freedom

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    1–2 minutes

    When repeatedly tempted with the vice we have coined as "freedom," it is to exercise your desire as your agency. (Chasing what you want is who you are, is to be a free, active individual.)

    Yet, the conflicted pursuit of desire disgorges a perverse acidic hate as you strive to earn your freedom, which is to gain yourself.

    The issue is that freedom through desire fulfillment requires increased intensity to become more of what you are (your autonomous individuality), paradoxically leading to an angry, vitriolic exercise of self, which corrupts and degrades yet demands further pursuit to maintain your freedom.

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    Paradox of Desire: universal uniqueness

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    1–2 minutes

    Naturally, people desire and struggle to pursue those desires. Manufacturing desire (programming and targeting specific desires, objects, and ideas) is a means to unite people: we all want the same thing. And yet, it is divisive as solidarity shifts to bitter competition and mimetic jealousy.

    Curiously, today, we all want uniqueness. It is our universal desire, which is paradoxical, to say the least.

    Not only are selective channels (archetype scripts) prepared in advance for your journey, but to actually be unique removes (excludes) you from the universal desire, the communal pursuit.

    That is, the goal (unique individuality) must not be achieved if one is to remain a relatable participant in society.

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    Revealing the new ideal

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    1–2 minutes

    There are moments in political history and even scientific thought when an “ideal” takes hold of a population, such as Reaganomics or identity politics. For 30 or 40 years, this ideal seems to explain who we are to ourselves, how strong or weak we are, and how we identify with the dream. Yet, eventually, the contradictions within it become increasingly unsustainable. A new ideal presents itself, forcing a break and allowing us to reestablish our identity with fresh attachment points.

    Consider that this dispensation was always there; we were simply captured by an ideology that kept us blind to alternative options.

    The process of disagreement to acceptance is a slow revelation, an enlightenment process of increased sight. And seeing is believing; thus, political action -symbolic warfare- begins until it too crumbles when our gleeful, shiny ideal impacts reality, becoming tarnished, used, and dingy.

    From here, our alienation converts us back to seeking, looking for new words that align with our emotional vision of self. And magically, the cause was always there, merely waiting to be revealed and foisted high.

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    shading terminal limits

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    1–2 minutes

    We understand the infinitely split spectrum of a single color. Interior designers have taught us the infinity of “white.”

    Now, the once absolute “black” is a spectrum of eclipse, graphite, carbon, rich black, and absolute. Pathetically, ironically enough, black isn’t black.

    In such a way, our symbols of an utmost limit -black or white- become centrist and non-nuanced, requiring a new adjective for the adjective (an adverb) as the once terminal signifier becomes its own spectrum.