To live in contraction is to be human.

To live in contradiction is to be human.

We like to think of ourselves as coherent, as if we’re meant to make sense, as if the stories we tell about who we are should add up to something neat, something linear, something that can be explained without hesitation. But the truth is, we are a mess of contradictions, holding opposing truths in the same breath, shifting between selves depending on the room we walk into.

You want freedom, but you crave stability.

You long for deep connection, but you fear being known.

You reject authority, yet you yearn for someone to tell you you’re on the right path.

You believe in kindness, but some days, your cynicism wins.

You want change, but comfort is so much easier.

We are not one thing. We never have been. We are made up of fragments, some inherited, some constructed, some we don’t even recognise until they betray us in a moment of unguarded reaction.

And the world tells us this is a flaw. That we should aim for clarity. That contradiction is hypocrisy, that we should pick a side, define ourselves, know exactly who we are and what we stand for at all times.

But that’s not how humans work.

To be human is to wrestle with paradox. To be both brave and terrified, both selfish and self-sacrificing, both hungry for answers and suspicious of certainty.

And maybe the problem isn’t that we contradict ourselves. Maybe the problem is that we think we shouldn’t.

Maybe the real work isn’t to untangle every inconsistency, but to learn to hold them. To sit in the tension of wanting two opposing things and accept that both are true. To stop demanding that we make perfect sense to others, or even to ourselves.

Because if we insist on coherence, we will spend our whole lives amputating the parts of us that don’t fit into a singular, tidy identity. We will silence the questions that challenge our own beliefs. We will force ourselves into a rigid narrative, and then wonder why it doesn’t feel like home.

But if we accept contradiction, if we embrace the messiness of being, maybe we get something else instead.

Maybe we get depth.

Maybe we get freedom.

Maybe we get to be fully human.