The Duality in Life

Do you ever notice the duality in life?

Not from a deeply philosophical, sit-under-a-tree-and-rethink-existence kind of lens. I mean from the vaguest, most everyday lens possible. The kind that sneaks up on you in those oddly specific contradictions you carry around. Lately, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and to be honest, it has made me so much more self-aware.

Take the most basic example: me.

In general, I do think I’m an empathetic and kind person. Yes, yes, I know, very noble of me to say that about myself...I’ve clearly been attending narcissism 101. But morally, I do believe judging people is wrong. And yet, I judge. Sometimes on the most absurd, unnecessary, almost diabolically unserious things. My mind just seems to run on some mysterious fuel that I did not approve of. And that, to me, is one of the simplest forms of duality. There is the person I believe myself to be, and then there is the person my mind occasionally reveals in fragments. The interesting part, though, is that awareness steps in before those passing judgments harden into complete perceptions. So it stays momentary. Still there, but not defining. And somehow, that makes the duality stand out even more.

Social media, I’ve noticed, adds its own special seasoning to this whole thing. In real life, I am not a naturally outgoing, extroverted person. I do find it hard to initiate conversations. Socialising can feel like an exercise in mental buffering. But when it comes to texting? Suddenly, all the awkwardness evaporates. I become articulate, funny, expressive, almost suspiciously smooth. To the person on the receiving end, I most probably seem bipolar. Honestly, if they compared my real-life personality to my texting personality side by side, they'd go like "Kuch toh gadbad hai daya" .

And it doesn’t stop there. Even something as small as liking or reposting reels makes me question myself. I leave behind such an active digital footprint about things I genuinely find relatable that, to anyone interested, it could practically serve as material for a research paper on me. (Yes, guys, delulu is the only solulu.) But if I were ever given a podium to speak about quite a few of those things in public… ahh, I’d probably just go, “Sorry, what?” And the reason? I genuinely do not know. Which is, quite frankly, psychologically perplexing.

And then there is another kind of duality I keep noticing in myself ... the one where I spend one part of my day philosophising life and another part romanticising it. On one hand, I want to understand life. I want to dissect it, question it, examine it from every possible angle until it starts looking like a theory instead of an experience. But on the other hand, I also want to feel life. I want to let it be beautiful, let it be soft, let it be cinematic for no reason at all. I want meaning, but I also want magic. And technically, these seem like contrary impulses. To know life and to feel life. Yet both exist in me with equal intensity. And maybe that is exactly the point. Maybe duality is not always something to fix. Maybe it is not evidence of confusion, hypocrisy, or inconsistency. Maybe it is simply evidence of being human. Of containing multiple truths at once. Of being more layered than linear. In fact, maybe duality adds flavour to life.

Even science agrees, in its own nerdy, elegant way. Light itself carries duality in its nature, and that is precisely what makes it a field of study. So perhaps humans are not all that different. Maybe our contradictions are not flaws in the design. Maybe they are the design. And there is something strangely comforting in that thought.

And yes, I could absolutely go on forever about this, because that is just who I am ... an overthinker with a soft spot for existential loopholes. But I shall stop here, partly to save space on the internet and partly to save you from being trapped in the infinite loop of my thoughts.

Though, if I am being honest, maybe that loop is duality too.