Psychologically we all have aspects of ourselves that are contradictory and even counter-productive. Each of us is like a band of miscreants with different personalities and motivations. So getting ourselves to move in one direction requires taking our various, and sometimes conflicting, motivations and inclinations into account.
I like silence and solitude, but I also like company and conversation. I like obscurity, but I also want to hear and be heard. I want to let people go their own way, but I also want to tell them when they’re full of shit.
Fortunately some of my contradictions are more or less obvious. But I’m sure some are more subtle and less visible. But it’s all okay. We don’t have to choose, there’s room for it all.
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”
–Walt Whitman