I once advised a young writer with the exact conviction and words that turned my face red and eyes rolled white when I was green. "Write every day" I dispensed like a vending machine, forgetting how I once mocked such simplistic counsel from established literary vendors. "Consistency is key. "Keep it simple"Find your voice? These were the platitudes I rejected in my 20s, dismissing them as the tired mantras of the creatively depleted. Yet there I was, transformed into the very archetype I once defined myself against.

It's funny how life has a way of making poets out of hypocrites. The things we push against often become the pillars that eventually hold us up. Antithesis. From the Greek anti (against) and thesis (position)—the opposition that paradoxically defines us as clearly as what we embrace. We are as much the sum of our rejections as our acceptances.

How often do we begin our self-definition with I'm not like…? We assemble our identities in negative space: not corporate drones, not sell-outs, not our parents. I spent years describing myself by what I wasn't—not mainstream, not conventional, not predictable. It was easier than articulating what I was. The rejection felt cleaner, more definitive than the messy work of genuine self-discovery.

Then life happens You wake up one morning and realise you've become the walking antithesis of your former self-the anti-establishment writer editing a glossy magazine. The free spirit now keeps a meticulous calendar. "The one who swore never to talk like their mother now hears his expressions tumbling from their lips at family gatherings.

When I started writing I declared with youthful arrogance that I'd never write listicles or concern myself with readership metrics Fast-forward a decade, I've crafted headlines engineered for engagement and finding unexpected joy in perfecting the literary technicalities of luxury materials The irony isn't lost on me. Sometimes, I wonder if my younger self would even recognise me. But that's the thing about antithesis—it reveals the false binary of our thinking.

We love neat dichotomies: authentic/fake, independent/mainstream, artist/sellout. But the borders between these oppositions are more porous than we pretend. The critic who decries capitalism while checking their iPhone. The minimalist with a storage unit full of "just in case" possessions. The spiritual seeker who judges the materialism of others. We all contain multitudes as Walt Whitman might say, and contradictions.

Carl Jung called it the shadow-those aspects of ourselves we most vehemently reject. "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves, he wrote, which is a fancy way of saving: What drives you crazy about other people is usually what you fear in yourself.

Jung wasn't just another bearded European dude with fancy theories. The man tapped into something primal about our psychological makeup that even TikTok therapists can't entirely distil into a 30-second clip. His shadow concept is the original "it's not you, it's me breakup line, but with actual substance.

Think of it this way: we all have a psychological closet where we stuff the parts of ourselves that don't fit the narrative we're selling to the world—and sometimes to ourselves. Those disowned fragments don't disappear; they just throw parties in our unconscious, occasionally sending out invitations as triggered reactions to other people.

That colleague who makes your blood boil with their constant name-dropping? That friend whose humble bragging makes you want to fake an emergency call? That's not just annoyance—that's your shadow waving frantically from behind the velvet rope of your consciousness, trying to get your attention. "Hey, look at me!" it screams. I'm the part of you that also craves recognition but is too proud to admit it!"

In my work, the most compelling stories live in this tension. Profile interviews become interesting when a person's public image and private reality diverge. The most arresting photographs capture the moment between motion and stillness. The essays that resonate contain not just conviction but doubt. Creativity thrives not in perfect harmony but in the productive discomfort of opposition.

The psychological term is "projection, but I prefer to think of it as our bullshit detector malfunctioning-instead of detecting others' bullshit, it's highlighting our own. The stronger the reaction, the more accurate the detection. It's like being absolutely furious at someone for leaving dirty dishes in the sink while your bedroom looks like a scene out of Jung's mind.

l once had a visceral contempt for a former colleague's people-pleasing behaviour. Their constant seeking of approval made me physically uncomfortable. Years later. I realised that my judgment masked my terror of disapproval, just expressed through different strategies. The most despised qualities revealed precisely what I couldn't admit about myself. Its like how you can only see stars in the darkness. The shadow outlines the light. The silence defines the music. The negative space reveals the form. We need both sides of the equation to complete the picture.

This creative tension exists not just within individuals but also within cultures. Singapore, where I've spent most of my life, embodies striking contradictions—simultaneously conservative and innovative, controlled and dynamic, traditional and futuristic. I used to find these contradictions frustrating but now I see them as the very friction that generates our distinctive character. The constant negotiation between opposing forces creates energy rather than cancellation.

In my work, the most compelling stories live in this tension. Profile interviews become interesting when a person's public image and private reality diverge. The most arresting photographs capture the moment between motion and stillness. The essays that resonate contain not just conviction but doubt. Creativity thrives not in perfect harmony but in the productive discomfort of opposition.

This may be why I've stopped trying to resolve the contradictions in my life and instead begun to honour them. The introspective writer who loves the spotlight. The critical thinker who believes in magic. The advisor who still feels like an impostor. These aren't failures of consistency but the natural topology of a human being.

A practice I've adopted: Whenever I strongly reject something, I pause and ask, "What might this reveal about me?" Not to invalidate the rejection but to understand its roots. I often discover that what repels me is a distorted reflection of something unintegrated within myself. This doesn't mean I must embrace what I've rejected, but it helps me hold my certainties more lightly.

Don't get me wrong—I'm still working on this. Last month, I silently judged someone's social media presence as "inauthentic" while simultaneously planning my carefully curated post. The difference between hypocrisy and self-awareness is sometimes just a moment of honest reflection. I'm trying to live in that moment more often.

So here lam. the former rebel now dispensing conventional wisdom to aspiring writers. The one-time literary purist who now appreciates the craft behind commercial content. The independent spirit who finds meaning in institution-building. I've become the antithesis of my former self and yet somehow more authentically me than ever.

Perhaps that's the ultimate paradox-that the path to integration runs straight through contradiction. We don't become ourselves by resolving all opposition but by embracing the productive tension between who we were, who we are, and who we're becoming. Neither synthesis nor the full spectrum of human possibility lies in the space between thesis and antithesis.

Like that advice I gave the young writer? I still believe in it. And I still reject it. Both can be true at once.