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If you look closely enough, you’ll see—we all live in paradox.

Paradox is when two things look like opposites but secretly define each other.

We want change—yet we cling to comfort.

We crave freedom—yet reach for guard rails.

We long for the wild—yet work to keep it tame.

And it shows up in subtle ways too. Someone might say, “I can’t trust myself.”

But look at that statement more closely, there is trust in it.

They are trusting that they can’t be trusted—trusting their distrust. Which means, they trust themselves to be that way.

Someone swears they’re “out of control.”

But look closely—there’s order in that too. If you’re always out of control, that’s a kind of consistency.

A true “out of control” would be chaos one moment and total mastery the next. But most people? They’re controlling their out-of-controlness. They’ve made disorder into a pattern.

These are the paradoxes we live in.

And if we could actually see them for what they are—we’d see the absurdity.

But here’s the thing: every single one of us is tangled in them.

There’s even a kind of behavioral coding in our DNA that pulls us both ways at once—toward the familiar and the new.

It’s why we rewatch movies. We know we’ll enjoy them because we’ve seen them before, but we hope we’ve forgotten just enough for it to still feel fresh.

These juxtapositions are what keep us suspended.

We need to feel like we’re progressing, moving, changing.  But real change feels unfamiliar—so most of the time, we circle back to our defaults.

We dip into adventure just long enough to scratch the itch… and then return to what’s safe.

This is why so many teachers don’t actually help people. 

They don’t realize they’re just feeding the loop.

There’s a part of us that wants change—so they offer it in a way that appeases us, without actually threatening the familiar.

It goes like this:

“Here’s what you need to do to change your life…

…but don’t worry, you’re already magical, perfect, and enough just as you are.”

How can both be true? Change and perfection?

It works because it appeases both impulses at once. It gives you the sensation of progress and the thrill of adventure, but only the kind that comes with safety rails and churros on the side. It’s not transformation—it’s Disneyland.

You get the rollercoaster without ever leaving the theme park.

I say this often: if you want change, then something has to change.

This is why in Buddhist traditions they don’t waste much time tinkering with the ego. They don’t try to patch it up or convince it—it would just panic, dig in its heels, and double down on resisting change.

It’s a trap.

So instead, they step straight out of it.

That’s my approach too. I don’t appease.

I disturb.

Not to be cruel—to be kind.

Because things need to be ruffled. Disturbed. Shaken up.

And yes—that makes us uncomfortable.

But pause for a moment: which part of us feels that discomfort? It’s the very part we want to change. The part designed to cling, to stay fixed.

Of course it resists. Of course it squirms.

That’s the prison gate creaking open. Staying comfortable is just choosing to stay inside the wall.

That’s the paradox. When you finally see the paradox you’re living inside, you stop being trapped by it.

You rise above it.

You let the storm of the push and pull rage inside you—while you stand just outside of it.

The key is perspective.

To step far enough back that you can see the whole pattern: the march forward toward change… and the retreat back to safety.

You have to catch that dance in yourself.

Look at the people who chase every new self-help workshop. They’re not changing—they’ve just created a new pattern: trying to change. And that’s far more comfortable than actually changing.

Look at our civilization.

It didn’t just drop out of a clear blue sky.

It’s a reaction.

A reaction to our human wiring.

If our internal coding were different, the world we built would look different too.

I call civilization an emotional reaction. From a bird’s-eye view, you can see it: a giant system designed to make us more comfortable, to avoid what’s hard, and to chase what feels good.

Civilization? It’s just a fancy cage. A domestication plan, we were once wild now we are house animals.

We swapped firelight for fluorescent bulbs, instincts for inboxes, rhythm for alarms.

We wanted safety—but we also want the wild.

So now we “hunt” through feeds, “explore” through Netflix, and call scrolling an adventure.

Think about it:

• Sidewalks and couches — we traded wild ground and hard earth for straight lines and soft landings

• Fast food and supermarkets — convenience engineered to satisfy hunger instantly, a quick fix for the deeper unease beneath.

• Markets and money — elaborate systems built to satisfy our cravings for security, power, and significance.

• Entertainment — distraction from discomfort, giving us excitement when we feel bored, or escape when life feels heavy.

• Politics — people promising safety, stability, and belonging if we choose their side.

Everything we’ve created is built on this same loop: emotions drive behavior, and behavior builds structures that feed those emotions.

Civilization isn’t separate from us. It’s the collective projection of our nervous systems, our cravings, and our fears—scaled up.

Another paradox: the illusion of progress, while civilized comfort quietly freezes us in place.

That’s the paradox: two poles, one body.

Most people spend a lifetime suspended between them—or jerked from one side to the other—trying to make the tension feel like “balance.”

So don’t work to soothe that.

Work to disturb it.

Stir the inside so you can finally see what’s been hiding there.

The habits. The hooks. The loops.

Disturbance is merciful.

It shows you the bars of the cage you built—and the open door just inches away.

So awareness has to become an act of rebellion.

Notice the pattern. 

Name the paradox.

Step out of the trance.

Choose rhythm over reaction.

Integrity over impulse.

Presence over performance.

Paddle upstream.

Model another way.

Be deliberate.

Freedom isn’t a mood. It’s a position

.

And once you take it, nothing can take it from you.

With gratitude (and maybe a little cosmic disturbance),

Paul Vincent

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