Wr1tt3n0ne

Bunches and bunches
2017-05-06 13:36:44 (UTC)

Paradoxical Thinking

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
F. Scott Fitzgerald


I have grown accustomed to being the less intelligent among my peers. A step behind, a beat too late, just a tad slower overall. My group is the 2 % and someone has to be the 98% instead of the 100% and that's always where I fancied I lived. Imaginative, creative, but not as imaginative and creative as my peers.

As I glance back over the trainwreck with that guy, I see something I didn't really understand at the time. He seemed to be so hung up about my vacillating mind. The fact that I could want him closer to me, deeper into my life and also see the benefits of having more boundaries and space away from him. He couldn't function thinking that I could be so contrary. To him it was lying, one way or another, or a fabrication of my intent, or an inaccurate depiction of my emotions. But really, it was none of that.

I am afflicted with paradoxical thinking. I function fine, every so often it causes me to linger over decisions, but my life is testament to the fact I am functional. I have a loving, stable crew of friends and chosen family. They understand me to greater and lesser degrees, sure, but not one of them finds me dishonest nor insincere. They can, and rightfully do, count me among their close friends and allies. I have tethered my life to theirs, willfully and happily reinforcing the bonds that bind us.

I never found it an advantage to be able to hold conflicting viewpoints in mind, until I started working in the law. The law is a black and white written series of "if, than's" and people are grey all over. I struggled in college finding so much grey governed by black and white, that I sought out science to alleviate the paradox. But as I was to find out, science is black and white, until it turns grey. When experiments did not function, it took grey thinking to discern where the problem lay. It took creative and magical thinking to backwards engineer processes to be successful. I once asked my mentor in molecular biology why sometimes the experiments function as expected and sometimes they utterly failed. His answer, "Sometimes we forget to pray to the science gods." It turned out to be true, in as much as there is randomness where you least expect to find it. And without being able to hold such conflicting outcomes in your mind, you are useless to find the inevitable hiccup in the system. Science may be standard but people surely aren't.

I have always been chock-full of such thinking. I suffer all the casual acquaintances telling me how fickle I am. How I will never get anywhere in my life with that messy nonsense. That I am the cause of my own suffering. That that type of thinking will lead me to unhappiness. They are wrong, you know. I am complex and thoughtful. I adapt better to the changing because I have already explored the consequences of diametrically opposed outcomes. I function, well. And I am generally happier because my life doesn't depend on any one outcome. Yes, I can stress myself out, but kicking back and going with the flow was never really something I valued. A life unconsidered is half lived.




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