Well here's and example of something I feel is a Beautiful Contradiction:
“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
. . . Could someone please extrapolate?
["People do incredible things in their life but they're insignificant to the world as a whole because said things affect people at a micro-level . . . we only hear of so many great deeds, but the vast majority go unrecognized by us through no fault of our own. Changing one person's life is important; importance and significance are not one in the same, you know?"]
Okay . . .
["People do incredible things in their life but they're insignificant to the world as a whole because said things affect people at a micro-level ..."]
. . . But these said things affect people nonetheless? Right? These said things affect people significantly, just not as significantly as something a little bit more impacting such as a new well for a developing third-world village, might have. Furthermore, I'm sure we all can agree that what may seem insignificant to a first-world society, could be extremely beneficial to a third-world society.
Alright so here we go with the analogy:
Let's say that Charitable Organization needs 100,000 dollars to fund a welling(?) operation. Whatever, they want a well.
They have $99,999.99 . . . so they need a penny . . . a minuscule, seemingly unimportant penny. Well I'm sure we can all agree that this seemingly unimportant penny is the true tipping point for a extremely charitable act. The penny seems more important now huh? This LITTLE penny really will affect this village at a macro level.
But, I guess it all depends on how you look at it, there's always a bigger challenge, a more charitable donation. There's always something more impacting. It's all opinion, "is the glass half full or half-empty" . . . whatever it's opinion. You can't argue with opinion.
["...Changing one person's life is important; importance and significance are not one in the same, you know "]
Well yeah, I agree; another humans life is something worth changing for the better. If you ever have the opportunity to help someone. You certainly should in my opinion.
As far as importance and significance being dissimilar, yeah they're synonyms.
All in all, I don't care much for this dissection of the quote; there are simple too many holes in it and it's based solely on opinion. Which is fine. If you believe that's what it means, more power to ya.
Sentiments aside here's a more logical approach to finding an answer. Here's the quote again just in case I'm about to lose you:
“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
When answering a question we typically use prior knowledge and make assumptions. It's part of how we sort and associate things in our brains.
Think of a Purple Elephant.
Did you think of one?
Was it because you have a memory of a purple elephant?
Or was it because you've (1) already learned and associated the word p-u-r-p-l-e with a color and you've also (2) learned and associated the word e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t with a large pachyderm, then (3) manifested a purple elephant in you're mind?
Well it's hard to not assume things, it's how we solve day to day problems. We do it all time. The fact that we, as humans, are the most cognitively-able species on the face of the planet is nothing short of a miracle.
Pull away from any instinctive assumptions about this quote. I implore you. If you do, you will be left with nothing short of a contradiction.
I tend to over complicate and dilute things a lot, so I'll try to keep this part concise.
“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
Since I've already proven that significance and importance can be used interchangeably, I will keep it simple by just using "important" in both halves of the statement. Like this:
"Whatever you do will be unimportant, but it is very important that you do it.
I'll now zoom in so you can see how it contradicts itself:
"Whatever you will do will be unimportant but it is very important that you do whatever unimportant thing you will do, because it is important that you do it"
C'mon isn't it obvious? Haha yeah it got pretty confusing there I'll admit. Let's try again.
- Whatever you do will be unimportant = everything is unimportant and minuscule.
- It is very important that you do it = It is important that you do the unimportant things.
If everything is unimportant and you do every unimportant thing. How can it be important that you do them?
If you were to somehow add every unimportant thing then you would have a grand total of 0 importance, which means that doing anything has no value at all.
If everything is unimportant then any and every action has no value at all.
. . . Wrapping it up . . .
Well I've came to the conclusion that this quote, when taken literally and interpreted logically, presents itself as a contradiction, a paradox. The thing is, we'll never truly understand the true meaning of the quote unless the author were to explain what he meant. Not only must we look at the written word from a purely literal perspective but we should also strive to understand the purely human aspects of the written word. It is imperfect and absolutely beautiful.
Post if you disagree/agree, I love other perspectives.
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