Life must either produce forms or proceed through forms. But forms belong to a completely different order of being. They demand some content above and beyond life; they contradict the essence of life itself, with its weaving dynamics, its temporal fates, the unceasing differentiation of each of its parts. Life is inseparably charged with contradiction. It can enter reality only in the form of its antithesis, that is, only in the form of form.

DEFINE: Clarifies a philosophical framework where life and form stand in dialectical opposition, with life requiring form as its antithesis to enter reality.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 866