We too must be paradox

"A priori contradictions will always appear in life. The words of the Bible and the sayings of Christ are paradox. We too must be paradox, for only then do we live our lives, only then do we reach completeness and integration of our personalities. To be whole is to be full of contradictions. The unity never be­comes apparent because the opposites within us operate and mingle in various ways and itis their interaction that makes the whole man. The complete human being, the hermaphrodite, is never visible. He is indescribable, al­ways a mystical experience. That which shows itself is always paradoxical so there is no uniform image of the personality. Biographies seem so unreal because they at­tempt to give a consistent picture of someone 's personali­ty. The visible image of man is that he is both Christ and the Devil at the same time; the image is truthful only when it is ambiguous and paradoxical. That is why we can also say that doubt is a higher state than certainty . He who doubts can see both possibilities. It is pleasant for us when certainty is attained , but it must not last too long for certainty is not life." Conversations with C.G. Jung, Margaret Ostrowski-Sachs