timeless

No you are not silly. You see contradictions and you ask the question risking to be ridiculed. There are serious cognitive problems when learning relativity. In the article: Rachel E. Scherr1, Peter S. Shaffer1 and Stamatis Vokos "Student understanding of time in special relativity: Simultaneity and reference frames" Am. J. Phys. 69, S24 (2001); The authors state:"The results [of the research] indicate that after standard instruction students at all academic levels have serious difficulties with the relativity of simultaneity and with the role of observers in inertial reference frames. Evidence is presented that suggests many students construct a conceptual framework in which the ideas of absolute simultaneity and the relativity of simultaneity harmoniously co-exist." You have to pursue your questions for as long as you mind is not satisfied with the absence of contradiction on logical grounds. It make take a lifetime but it is worth pursuing.