Saturday, November 09, 2013

Contradictions within the mind

I just came across some information related to self-actualisation and personality theory/

There exist polar opposites in an individual.

Consider the following polar opposites:
1) regarding everything as infinitely meaningful vs regarding everything as completely meaningless or absurd,
2) having a deadly serious temperament vs having a playful, joking temperament,
3) the experience of Being vs the experience of Nothingness or Non-Being,
4) Identifying oneself with everything vs nothing,
5) the experience of freely-willed actions vs the experience of actions beyond one's will,
6) the experience of being passionate and attached vs the experience of detachment.

The point is that the self-actualized individual will have or experience many of these polar opposites, at different times, but more importantly, simultaneously. I don't doubt that experiencing polar opposites simultaneously can be a disturbing thing for some, but the reconciliation of these opposites is one of the keys, I think, to Self-Actualization because it allows one to go beyond opposites and contradictions. One is no longer trapped within one or another 'perspective', but instead realizes all of them simultaneously.

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