The Power of Paradox

Archer Hou Yi Shooting
the Sun

Human beings live with severe limitations, a short life, limited senses, physical weakness, etc... yet we can conceive of things like infinities, or vast power, and can desire immortality. (The Count of Saint Germain is an alchemist who according to legend discovered the secret of immortality.) We can desire transformation and an escape from the necessity of cycles. We are like a bow drawn between mundane reality and imaginary worlds.

Our symbolic languages fail to capture the essence of  that imaginary world. The millions of man years spent earnestly making inky scratches on paper can't capture its concepts in a net made of paper. They slip away like a slender doe bounding through the woods.

Art helps blaze a trail into that world. One method for illuminating that world is by depicting what amounts to a negative space. A favorite trope of SciFi, for example, is showing what it means to be human by including a robot character who wishes to be human.

The idea of a zen koan is similar, I think. Contemplating a paradoxical question like, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" forces the mind out of mere logical thinking, or mere regurgitation and assembly of facts.

The gap between logical and symbolic thinking and imagination seems to be a source of human creativity.