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The best example I can give regarding the word I am looking for is this-

We live in a perceptive world though we also reside in a conception of what we know. We may live perceptively and focus primarily on the effects of life but that does not negate the conceptive side to life.

We should as human beings be both entirely selfish and selfless at the same time to allow others to be selfish.

Any thoughts on what words could describe the above? I have pondered maybe a paradox or enigma but do not think it defines it very well. Almost like an hourglass being constantly turned over on itself or a Jacobs Ladder toy.

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    It sounds similar to oxymoronic, but I don't think it fits entirely. Aug 5, 2019 at 18:51
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    "Vacuously false" or "self-contradictory" occur to me, but I suspect that's because "opposite" has a pretty specific meaning in my ideolect...
    – user888379
    Aug 5, 2019 at 19:06
  • Do you mean an 'autantonym' like 'cleave' (means both to split and to hold together)?
    – Mitch
    Aug 6, 2019 at 2:46
  • There are numerous terms with varying effect and connotation: oxymoronic, self-contradictory, schizophrenic, etc. Just look any of those up in a thesaurus. Since the examples you provide are actually nouns (i.e., "paradox" and "enigma"), not adjectives, despite the fact that you expressly asked for "a word that describes," you might consider the analogy of a coin, which is both "heads" and "tails"— opposites, thus we idiomatically nounally call what rhetorically seems to be impossibly contradictory but in actuality isn't "two sides of the same coin." Sep 4, 2019 at 23:33

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I think the term might be Complimentary. Depending on which side of the idea you approach from that which you describe takes on a contrasting view. Together these views can be described as complimentary.

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