This Is Not a Title

Antithetical statements have contradictory concepts paralleled in one sentence, making a strong statement by emphasizing on the contradiction.

An example would be: “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” or “man proposes, God disposes”.

 Shield uses antithesis in statements such as “great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings” (p.136)

 And: “it’s natural to enter into dialogues and disputes with others, because it’s natural to enter into disputes with oneself” (p.136)

 And: “Were only certain about what we don’t understand” (p.138)

 These types of statements fit perfectly into Shields style, mainly consisting of very powerful and profound phrases that are powerful in the same way a Haiku is.

 Statements like this: “When we are not sure we are alive” (p.141) , and Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day” (p.143), they would make perfect bumper stickers or tattoos or something.
 So good for an era in which attention spans have been getting shorter.

 The nature of reality is paradoxical. The nature of, say, a pair of shoes is not the physical composition of the pair of shoes but our appreciation of them, an idea, something intangible and corrupted by our biased minds, something unreal. Therefore, the nature of reality is not real.

  Also, the nature of a real shoe is the same as that of an unreal shoe. If I put you behind a screen where, perchance, a mouse looks just like a shoe, reality doesn’t count, as far as appreciation is concerned, and that is all that matters: the nature of the mouse is that which we allot to a shoe.