Elastic Thinking can hold two contradictory ideas simultaneously
The pursuit of truth often requires exploration of contradictory ideas at the same time, weighing them against each other. This Paradox Mindset is not always a comfortable activity.
Before I go on with this short history let me make a general observation—the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the “impossible” come true. —F. Scott Fitzgerald[1]
See also:
From the essay “The Crack-Up,” 1936. ↩︎