Lost (a poem by firstcomet)

It was a flower, perished
It was a desire, demised
It was a chance, missed
It was a take, lost

If the moment was cherished
If the words were spoken
If he had his ego accost
If she had her passion gust

Maybe their path could have crossed!

Rachmaninoff Piano concerto No.3

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that Game theory should be the natural language of Contradictionism and that people should be more educated about game theory:

It's very simple; contradictions are the cause of all the conflicts in the world. But, people don't realize it. I can think of two reasons for this:

1) Euphemism: we try to resolve contradictions in the linguistic stage by adopting euphemism.
2) Evolutionary psychology: we are so much conditioned by our extended histories that do not realize our inherent biases.

To be more concrete, let's take an example of Euphemism: "Patriotism is a virtue." Here, Patriotism is a euphemism for acting in accordance with the unilateral interest of your country. However, if every country follows the same maxim then conflict is inevitable.

Here is an example of how evolution biases our point of view and results in contradiction: "One has to be truthful unconditionally." However, the following dynamics results in contradiction:

i) Factuality: A necessary condition to stay truthful is to keep track of facts and stay faithful to them.
ii) Fallibility: human beings make mistakes. Furthermore, they often find it more convenient to hide their fallibility from others, or rationalize their mistakes, or to blame others for their own wrong doings.
iii) Friendliness: social life requires collaborating with others to achieve common goals or to compromise over incompatible objectives. Friendship by definition requires being biased with respect to certain individuals, thus, manipulating facts to their advantage.

Thus, there is a fundamental contradiction between Factuality and Friendliness as a byproduct of Fallibility. Looking at the state of affairs, it seems like Friendliness takes precedence over Factuality. This quality (friendliness) equipped our ancestors to cope with the complications of living in groups.

Another closely related example: "Rationality commands that our primary moral and social concerns must not be directed towards those with whom we are bound by the common ties of kinship, rather to those who strive to improve the condition of their lives through conscious decisions and ceaseless struggles."

Above is an example of a principle one might arrive at via sensible reasoning, but is not supported by our common sentiments. In particular, we fail to realize the above due to our emotional engagement with the members of our kinship group.

It is proposed that educating individuals about the principles of "proof by contradiction", might be a viable mean to help them see the contradiction of life and to deal with its complications. However, I remain skeptical! Since, resolving many contradictions of life demands a "disconnect" from our very natural dispositions that are not psychologically viable or otherwise painful. At the very least, it requires a great deal of courage and intellectual honesty.

Life is the peace of contraries,
And Death is the proof of this war. --Rumi

The Gap

I wonder how it feels to grow up in a middle-class family in US.
I wonder how it feels like to be Peter; the son of an engineer (or was his dad a businessman) who has been making a six figure income for the past 20 years, while Peter was going through different stages of his life.

What did Peter do while he was 5 years old?
How did his pre-school years look?
How were his middle school days?
What does Peter think about life?
Peter's dreams?
Peter's ideals?
What does it take to make Peter?
What does it take to break Peter?