Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative; in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.
I think one of the primary themes in my work is the paradox of memory, at once fundamental to our sense of who we are and yet elusive, ever-changing, fragmentary. One way to look at this is to say that, therefore, we ourselves are elusive, ever-changing and fragmentary to ourselves.
Experience isn't interesting until it begins to repeat itself. In fact, till it does that, it hardly is experience.
There are many of these apparent philosophical paradoxes or contradictions which don't concern me anymore.
The Christian experiences and lives a paradox. He possesses joy in sorrow, fulfillment in exile, light in darkness, peace in turmoil, consolation in dryness, contentment in pain and hope in desolation.
Every moment is, in some ways, eternal. Once you put something into the world, it stays there.
Nothing is absolute, with the debatable exceptions of this statement and death.
I've never been convinced that experience is linear, circular, or even random. It just is. I try to put it in some kind of order to extract meaning from it, to bring meaning to it.
I've never quite understood that feeling: that you arrive in a strange place, yet you want to have nothing but familiar experiences.
Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.