Despite the “post-truth world” we’re often told we live in, most people only have room to understand one point of view. Society has evolved to be black and white, left and right - leaving little space for the mind to rest between the two.

We must allow space for conflicting ideas. The real secret is, two things that seem contradictory can be true at once. In fact, we should primarily wrestle with these subjects. Creative ideas, philosophy, business practices, and spirituality are just some topics that hold opposing truths. Society nurtures us into believing one way is right and the other is wrong. But sitting at the crossroads of two realities can help create more questions, spark creativity, and expand knowledge.

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting alone - the silence is comforting and you are full of peace. Your time in solitude is energizing. Your creativity is growing. There are no distractions and no obligation to perform. At this moment, you have no certainty - but your compass still points due north.

You know the chaotic world holds obstacles, and you know the presence of community and your interactions with others give life meaning. Individual lives are like spider webs, reaching more people than we are even aware of. Yet your next-door neighbor doesn’t even know your last name. This is a paradox.

So is believing in the concept of free agency, but not supporting all the choices that follow. So is the challenge of accepting ourselves at face value, while still trying to achieve peak performance. So is attempting to celebrate our present successes, but feeling defeated by what is yet to come.

Our days are riddled with many points of view. Knowing that these opposites can and do coexist should be a relief and not a reason for concern. There’s no escaping conflicting truths. They go hand-in-hand and one cannot live without the other. This is why dialogue and discourse, like the forums hosted in Law & Liberty or campus debates sponsored by the Common Sense Society, are so important—not for one side to win, but for all sides to learn.

In conversation, asking clarifying questions and challenging presuppositions should not be taboo, even though “polite” society has conditioned us to think so. Discussions are not for winning arguments, but for acknowledging different viewpoints as just that - different points of view. One is not necessarily right and the other wrong. Just as one person’s beauty does not take away from another’s, a world with uncertainty enriches our lives with endless possibilities.

The native American spiritualist Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. once wondered “what the world would look like today if some of our modern religions taught that self-knowledge, rather than blind adherence to external guidance and dogma, was the paramount goal of the spiritual path.” The same principle can hold true not only for religion and spirituality, but for all of life and society.