Ouch! My brain hurts!

My writing journey has been a personal personification of Sisyphus, the mythological hero who rolls the boulder up the hill each day, only to have it roll back down again each night, a punishment thanks to the sadistic mind of Hades after Sisyphus cheated death twice. Unlike the tragic king, my boulder only rolls a little bit back, making my progress painstakingly slow.

If you wish to get an opinion of where this journey began, the retired teachers of Barrie Central meet to celebrate our retirement escapades at McReilly's in Barrie's downtown. Were you to happen upon our band of merry grey-haired men, you could inquire about my early English competency with the esteemed Bruce Rumble, my high school English teacher. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm confident that he'd confirm my struggles with prose were blaring iduring my high school years.

As I gain experience, I also acquire knowledge ... pretty dangerous in my fingers, if I'm honest ... that I gamely attempt to apply to my creation process. Often, the search for said knowledge begins with a seemingly simple inference that leads to a little time spent 'down the wormhole' seeking enlightenment.

One interesting wee morsel is a paradox.

A paradox, for those that don't know, is a statement that despite valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically unacceptable conclusion. A paradox usually involves contradictory, yet interrelated, elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time. (Source)

Now, I'd like to publicly state that I have zero experience in the study of philosophy, and as such, might not have found paradoxes quite so interesting had I engaged in lively discussions with like-minded souls all in the pursuit of higher education. Regardless, I find the whole notion of pondering a paradox a worthwhile endeavour.

Some of the more well known examples are:

The Pinochio Paradox: One of the more famous paradoxes is the Pinochio Paradox. If Pinocchio said, “My Nose Will Grow Now,” it would create a paradox. As we all know, whenever Pinocchio lies, his nose grows longer. But there’s one sentence that Pinocchio could say that breaks this system, “My nose will grow now.” This conundrum is known as the Pinocchio Paradox because Pinocchio’s nose would have to grow to make his statement not a lie. But then it can’t grow, otherwise, the statement would not be a lie. So if he said, “My nose will grow now” and his nose does grow that would mean he wasn’t lying, but if he wasn’t lying, his nose wouldn’t grow. 

The Pinocchio paradox was thought of in February 2001 by an 11-year-old called Veronique Eldridge-Smith – the daughter of Peter Eldridge-Smith, who specializes in the philosophy of logic. The article was first published in the journal Analysis, and the Pinocchio paradox rapidly became popular on the Internet. “My nose will grow now” is the only paradox Pinocchio can cause by saying something. For example, if he was to say, “I will sneeze now”, and he didn’t that would be a lie and his nose would grow.

Source: Literally dozens of pages listing this so thanks to the many people who shared.

The Ship of Theseus Paradox: Another of the more famous paradoxes, thanks in part to the Marvel show WandaVision, is the Ship of Theseus Paradox. Theseus was a mythical king and the hero of Athens. (He was the guy who slayed the Minotaur, amongst other feats.) He did a lot of sailing, and his famed ship was eventually kept in an Athenian harbor as a sort of memorial/museum piece. As time went on, the ship’s wood began to rot in various places. Those wooden pieces were replaced, one by one. As time went on, more pieces needed replacing. The process of replacing rotten planks with new ones continued, at least in modern versions of the paradox, until the entire ship was made up of new pieces of wood. This thought experiment asks the question: Is this completely refurbished vessel still the ship of Theseus?

Take it a step further by asking what if someone else took all of the discarded, original pieces of wood and reassembled them into a ship. Would this object be Theseus’s ship? And if so, what do we make of the restored ship sitting in the harbor? Which is the original ship? This paradox is all about the nature of identity over time, and has been the subject of philosophical discussions for thousands of years.

Source: Again, literally dozens of pages, and again, a blanket thank you to all of those people.

The Liar's Paradox: One of Eubulides of Miletus’s more famous paradoxes, the Liar Paradox, is still discussed today. It has a very simple premise but a very mind-boggling result, and centers around the statement, "This sentence is false." 

Think about it for a moment. If the statement is true, then that means that the sentence is in fact false, as it claims, but that would then mean that the sentence is false. And if the sentence “this sentence is false” is false, then that means it’s true. But, if it’s true that it’s false, then—you get the picture. It goes on and on, forever.

Source: You probably know the drill by now. Thanks once again to the really smart people.

Some related English pearls of prose related to paradoxes are listed below. I'll come clean that prior to my paradox 'schoolin' I really didn't know the difference, but any writer worth a grain of salt needs to be aware of them, and attempt to employ their brilliance in writings.

Juxtaposition: Juxtaposition is when two or more contrasting elements are paired together. One of the clearest examples of juxtaposition is found in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” The contrast of best and worst, wisdom and foolishness set the tone for Dickens’ story.

Oxymoron: While a paradox is a contradictory statement or sentence, an oxymoron is the juxtaposition of two contradictory words ... Jumbo shrimp ... Living dead ... Only choice.

Irony: Irony is when events happen that are not the expected result. If you fill your portfolio with writing samples that have grammatical errors, that would be an example of irony. While all writers make mistakes, a writer who wants to attract clients should showcase their best work.

Antithesis: Antithesis is when you put two similarly structured sentences together and each has opposing ideas. When Neil Armstrong said “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” that is an example of antithesis. A small step and a giant leap are opposite actions.

You know, I used to think teaching HPE was hard ... English is harder! A tip o' my hat to Mr Rumble, Smr Sharpe, Ms Neilson, and all of my English teachin' buddies like Jessome, Faye, Champagne, Malandrino, and Weening plus the dozens of acquaintances over my 30 year career.