Life is a Paradox
Life can be wonderful and tragic at the same time!
What a paradox life is. It is wonderful and tragic at the same time. Day and night, light and darkness, good and evil, happiness and sadness, life and death; as if it is impossible to escape the dualistic bondage.
Why can’t there be only the day without the night? Why can’t there be only the light without the darkness? Why not only the good, happiness and life without the opposite?
Human beings have asked these questions from the very beginning of time, and we will continue to ask them so long as this creation remains in existence; though the answers are hard to come by.
Even if we have no answers, asking these questions somehow helps us to make good use of the life we have at hand in spite of the paradoxes.
Marriage can be a source of great joy or misery in life. Children can be the source of great pride or shame in life. Friends can make our life very colorful or turn it into darkness. Wealth, name fame, success, and everything we have can be either this or that in this paradoxical world.
Living in a connected world, we are exposed to all the good and the bad that is happening at the same time in the lives of so many people. It is so difficult to decide which direction to look in the face of such paradoxes.
In one place we see children singing, people dancing, families rejoicing, nations prospering. At the same time in another place, we see children dying without food, innocent people slaughtered by evil, families at each other’s throat, and nations crumbling into chaos.
As we grow older, we develop a better love for life and health. But when we were younger, we didn’t really care for our health. When friends move away, we long for their company but while they were nearby, we paid little attention to them. Somehow the things that we have appear to be less important than the things we have lost.
Change is a part of life and without it, we would not have made it thus far in life. But the older we get the more we hate change. Nostalgia and the longing for the good old days often create in us the melancholic disposition, whereas we are supposed to cherish the present moment and make it a joyful experience. After all, one day, the present moment will become the part of our nostalgia.
How can we live meaningfully in a world where there is so much pain and suffering on the one hand and so much joy and happiness on the other?
Humanly speaking, the answer to that question can either be selfishness or self-pity. We have to either be selfish in enjoying our good times, or be filled with self-pity when we go through the hard times. That is how the most of the world lives, and the evolutionary science tells us that the survival of the fittest is the only principle by which our ancestors lived and managed to bring us thus far. The religious philosophies tell us that the paradox is the result of our karma, and we have no excuse to complain when we suffer. Either way, there is no escape from this paradoxical existence.
The Bible on the other hand explains the mystery of the paradox and also gives us an escape from this dualistic dilemma. It explains that life in the beginning was free from the paradox, and there is coming a time in which humanity will be free from the paradox it has brought upon itself.
In fact, Jesus Christ is the culmination of all the paradoxes in this world. God becoming man. Dying a death in order to give life. Accepting the sinners as if they have never sinned. What a paradoxical truth!
Therefore, a follower of Christ can live a meaningful life in both the sides of the paradox. In his good times, he becomes graceful towards those who are suffering. In his bad times, he becomes grateful for what God in Christ has done for him to bring him out of this paradox eventually.
Apostle Paul in Galatians 2:20 exemplifies a Christian’s attitude in this paradoxical world; “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
