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HUNTING DOWN LIFE'S OXYMORONS! by Mike George
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Have you ever noticed a blind spot in your eyesight? Often called a 'scotoma' it seems everyone has one in one of their eyes. However we don't notice it as the other eye compensates and fills in the missing bit! But have you spotted the blind spot in your inner eye, in what you might call your inner vision or awareness. Most people are unaware of their physical 'scotoma' but some people set out to make themselves become aware of the blind spots in the inner eye. They realise they are often not 'seeing' something, and they know it is a blindness that is affecting their life.
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A blind spot in your inner awareness usually takes one of three forms
When you say one thing and do another and you are not aware of your own contradiction
When you 'accuse' others of a behaviour that you are doing yourself
When you hold on to a belief (usually subconsciously) which you know deep down is not true
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Such contradictions can come in many forms. When you criticize someone for always being negative about things, you don't recognize that you are being negative about the citiciser. When you accuse others of being abusive you are being abusive towards the abuser. When you hate the haters you become hater. When you tell someone you love them and then a few moments or a few days later become angry and blame them for what you feel.
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For some, such moments of contradiction can be frequent within an average day but they will not realise it, not 'see' it. For others there is a feeling of discomfort that follows such contradictory actions or statements but they can't quite put their finger on why the discomfort arises. More often it is friends, family or colleagues who will point out our behavioural scotomas and we then see and realise what we have been blind to.
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Communal and collective contradictions can also be found in every day conversations. Sometimes they are called 'oxymorons'. There are many oxymorons that inhabit the landscapes of our consciousness, our language and therefore our cultures. See if you can spot how many are in the following passage.
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She returned from a working holiday to find her son had being doing nothing most of the time except playing computer games based on virtual reality. Her husband was conspicuously absent so she called the agent to ask them to for an accurate estimate on the value of her house. And while the agent was awfully nice and said that some aspects of the house looked better than new the local film production company had called and wanted it as a location for a black comedy about the living dead.
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Other more commonly held contradictions become blind spots that can keep us collectively stuck in a kind of illusion, which in itself impedes our progress. One of the most common examples is the idea of 'stress management'. In the last twenty years a booming industry has arisen around this oxymoron and many have jumped on a bandwagon that is heading in the wrong direction. Stress levels are frequently reported to be rising almost daily. Usually accompanied by doom-laden forecasts of collapsing health services and much corporate pain in the bottom line, the explosion of panaceas under the heading of 'stress management' is now as varied as it is eccentric. But few have spotted that stress management is an oxymoron. It is a contradiction in terms. When you are stressed you cannot manage anything, most of all the stress itself, because the stress is managing you.
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The irony that lives in the very idea of stress management is that stress arises mainly because we are trying to control (manage) what we can never control, usually events and other people. So the only way out and into a stress free life is to stop trying to control (manage) what you cannot control which is everything except your own thoughts about what you are trying to control! And you won't be able to control your thoughts if you are stressed because your stress is essentially uncontrollable, negative thinking. Anger Management is the same, another oxymoron which sustains the illusion that anger can be managed.
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One of the hot topics of the last decade has been something called 'emotional intelligence'. But few have realised it's also an oxymoron. When you are emotional you cannot be intelligent. A simple definition of intelligence is 'to use what you know in the right way in the right place at the right moment'. Yet we all know from experience that when we become emotional the last thing we are able to do is calmly draw on our inner wisdom, create rational thoughts and clearly discern what is the appropriate response. When emotion floods through our consciousness it destroys our ability to act intelligently hence the sage advice to never make a life changing decision when you are emotional.
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History is littered with the most obvious oxymoron in the idea of a 'holy war'. To justify war by calling it a holy act looks like total blindness to the enlightened soul. Holy means sacred or approaching the divine, and war means the exact opposite. It is a violent and murderous exercise. We miss this blind spot when we justify the use of war to create a pathway to the creation of peace. We have to 'fight for peace' is more than a slight contradiction. We are really saying we have to use violence to achieve non violence. Few people have had the courage to 'flag up' such an obvious oxymoron, fewer had the courage to listen and even fewer the courage to live the other way. Gandhi was one of the very few.
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On a more personal level, and sometimes a precursor to war, is another more common oxymoron in the form of 'constructive criticism' "I was only being constructive", says the critciser, just after they have attacked the efforts or the integrity of the other. To criticise is to attack and to attack can never be constructive. While the art, literature and drama critic has the job to 'critique', it is more like a review unless and until emotion enters the review, then it becomes a personal reaction as opposed to a reflective response.
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Perhaps one of the most public oxymorons is embeded in the title of one of the most prestigious global organisations. The United Nations is an oxymoron. The very fact we have separate national identities means real unity will always be impossible, which is quite plain to see in the reality of today's inter-nation relations! Unity is only present when separation is absent. The title of the organization sustains the opposite of its mission. It's like saying 'we are all one'. Inherent in the 'we' is more than one, obviously!
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One oxymoron that influences us all is the idea of 'academic learning'. Our academic education is called learning but its mostly memorising, which is not learning, it's memorising. It's also the memorisation of other peoples memorisations, people who are positioned as authority figures of the past. Their ideas are held in the highest esteem and passed on as 'authority'. But real learning can only happen when the 'self' recognizes itself as its own authority in the universe of its own consciousness. Only then is real learning possible, which is learning what the self is and how the self works and how the self relates to other selves and how the self creates their world and why the self is here. This cannot be learned by a process of memorization, only from personal experience or what is sometimes called self realization. And if there is one subject in life that can never be academic it is that of the 'self'.
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It is always an interesting exercise to watch out for the oxymorons that have become inherent within our cultures. They can easily influence our intentions and relationships. Hunting down our contradictions is very much a part of awakening and expanding our self awareness. When we expose them within our consciousness we are shedding light on an illusion and laying bare the truth. Such moments of enlightenment are grist to the mill of the spiritual traveler and vital steps to liberation in life.
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Questions:
Have you ever realised you were contradicting your self or doing something that contradicted something you said?
What was that action and do you still do it?
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Reflection:
Why do we still find it hard to see the contradictions that creep into our own life?
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Action:
Create a conversation with friends or colleagues this week with the purpose of identifying anything contradictory within your actions and interactions as a group
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I am blessed with a good memory, somehow better than many others. I drew this picture when I was in the Singapore Polytechnic Welfare Services Club. It is a nostalgic piece. I can remember vividly, the hive of activities then. Some will be typing letters on noisy typewriters seeking sponsors for our projects in the old folks home, children's outings, Christmas celebrations, Moon Cake festivals, etc; others hang around with their guitars singing 'welfare songs', ie. songs with motivational lyrics for welfare work; some rehearsing sketches for the celebrations; and yet others doing their homework and fallen asleep... etc. Our volunteers spent much of their student life there - in the club room. To me it WAS my life! Fond memories like these can easily mesmerise me for hours.
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