The paradox... it's everywhere!

I am not sure if my eyes and ears are particularly receptive to the term "paradox" right not and even if so, why... but, I am reading and hearing of paradoxes everywhere!

Particularly, this is the paradox described on Wikipedia as the dialethea, wherein a statement is both true and false at the same time in the same sense. Or to express my conceptualization of the paradox, where a person, place or object exists in contradictory states at the same time. I'll give you some examples of the paradoxes that I've been "run over" with lately.

One.
Although there are likely many "Obama paradoxes", the one I read about most recently was how Obama was elected by a mass who saw him as ultimately accessible and representative of their own personal situation. However, as he has assumed the presidency, this accessibility is cut off at the knees by none other than the security detail and the image that Obama must assume as the "leader of the free world".

Two.
From The Power of Appreciative Inquiry by Whitney & Bloom, principle #7, The Enactment Principle sets up the "paradoxical practice" of putting into place in the present what is desired in the future. A person that wants to be someone different in the future, or an organization that want to change how it manages or operates in the future must "enact" that new character or style right now in the present.

Three.
My pastor uses the term "polarity" but speaks of its frequency in the Christian faith tradition, where two truths that are equally true but contradictory, exist in real tension. In one particular sermon, he described the tension between God's immanence (God our friend, in human flesh) and God's transcendence (God the mystery, the holy).

Four.
From Sandy Pideret's essay on Rethinking Resistance and Recognizing Ambivalence, ambivalent attitudes are both needed and debilitating in change processes.

Fifth.
In the sixth installment of the latest Ken Burns documentary, the idea of the national park in the U.S. is described as embracing two equally important but apparently contradictory thoughts: that the National Park system should preserve America's special places in natural conditions forever, AND, that they should be open and accessible for the enjoyment of all Americans. The show continues on that early park leaders glossed over the "paradox" arguing that the way to protect parks was to build public support for them by encouraging more and more visitors. However, following World War II, as the national park system turned 100 years old, and their facilities faced stress from more and more visitors, the "balancing act between preservation and use would be severely tested." The film goes on to show an interview with a historian William Cronon who says, "It's hard to imagine national parks existing without these tensions because they are precisely the right tensions that a democratic nation should have as it tries to figure out how to protect lands that are there for all people." This last quote was what made this particular illustration one of my favorites.

"Tensions" and paradoxes can be right and necessary for organizational change, for protection of resources and people, for evolution, and for revolution. Yes, culture is... good AND bad!