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Paradoxical To Its Core
November 11th, 2009 by Gary
Hipworth
The conceptual and dualistic world of ideas that humanity has
invented is only one way of perceiving reality and is only a small part of the whole – you might say
controversially that the world of concepts is a lovely fiction.
For instance, not everything can be reduced to the known and the
visible and the the invisible world also has a reality and power that thought or reason cannot touch but is also an
essential aspect of existence, just as the major part of an iceberg is below the surface.
Some examples of paradox:
- If the primary purpose of human life is
self-preservation, then why are our bodies designed to self-destruct from within?
- “I always
lie” is a paradox because if it is true it must be false.
- Paradoxically, it is the very awareness that life is
fleeting that motivates people to attempt to build artifacts and monuments that will
outlast their mortal bodies.
We now come to the mother of all paradoxes, so please be warned, this is not a pleasant matter, but if man is to be
truly free and centred on his own powers, he will need to face up to this 'deadly' paradox.
When you strip away man’s fictional character that he earns through playing his social roles, you reveal the
shocking paradox of his essential condition:
“The basic paradox of man’s existence is the awareness of himself as a unique individual on the one hand; and on
the other he is the only animal in nature who knows he will die .”
Ernest Becker.
This is the price that nature extracts for giving man self-awareness. Man is then left suspended between two poles
– a sense of individual importance and a feeling of fear and hopelessness or despair.
I will only touch on the key points but if you are interested in all the details you can read Ernest Becker’s
brilliant trilogy of books starting with ‘The Birth & Death of Meaning’, ‘Denial of Death’ and ‘Escape From
Evil.’
Be warned though - your life will never be the same
again!
