Never Walked In High Heels

              The older I get, the more I worry about my philosophical inconsistencies.  This is probably because the more time passes, the more people painfully (and annoyingly) have time to point out my inconsistencies.   For someone who loves philosophy and theology, this can be irritating. And for someone who is your classic type A personality, it’s paralyzing.

              As a young adult, I still haven’t given up on the ideal that there is a perfect moral system out there to operate under.   When I was 17 I learned about the law of non-contradiction. Briefly, it means that something cannot be X and not X at the same time. Which sounds good. My dog cannot be both black and white at the same time. Fine. Makes sense. Certain philosophers now take this to slightly higher stakes when they say that something is A and not A at the same time, it ceases to exist (or it didn’t exist in the first place).

              Yikes!

              Whenever you apply philosophy to real life (as opposed to dogs, tables, and chairs) things get messy very fast. How can I say I depend on faith and I go by what I see in the same day? My fellow young adults (and older ones too) love to point that one out to me. We somehow enjoy making hypocrites out of everyone but ourselves. Once we discover the flaws in our own ontological system we search for a broom and the nearest thing to hide the debris under. They don’t need to be seen. They are flaws we haven’t figured out yet. Please ignore our mess.

              The universe is full of contradictions. If you believe in any sort of god, chances are that god breaks his own rules. A rigid ethical system is something that we all cleave to, especially those of us who are insecure.

              “You can’t use a sledge hammer on a stained glass window,” a friend once told me. Which I’ve essentially taken to mean that we have different tools in our tool box for a reason and someone is only adept in his skill when he knows what tool to use when and how.    If someone is great at swinging a hammer, it doesn’t do a whole lot of good when you need a pair of tweezers.

              And so I contradict myself, and try very hard not to become irritable when others pick at this suture. Chances are they are beings of contradiction as well. We all have to be, to some extent, just to stay sane. And as annoying as they are, and as much as I may want them to, they aren’t going to cease to exist.