Paradox 101

“A paradox is not a conflict within reality. It is a conflict between reality and your feelings of what reality should be like.”

— Richard Feynman, Nobel prize-winning physicist.

This photograph is one I took several years ago in Bhutan; it is of a large painted mural in the Punakha monastery. In the Bhutanese tradition, these four animals, called The Four Harmonious Brothers, represent friendship and cooperation.

In the spirit of these four creatures and the concept they embody, today I’d like to dedicate this post to the people who have lost loved ones, friends, neighbors, their homes, possessions, and parts of their communities to the tornadoes that have devastated so many towns in the Midwest and the South. The realities they face are monumental, and incomprehensibly, painfully real. Yet in that place of brutal and sudden change these communities are holding together. They are coming to each other’s aid. Despite the destruction, shock, and personal loss.

A client shared this phrase with me last week: “Yes, and…” It’s a term used in improv theater, which at this very moment sounds like a fiercely apt metaphor for life. Improvise with everything you’ve got. With your entire being. ”Yes, this is happening, and…”