Louanne Learning
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Winner: 4th Contest August
Winner: June Flash Fiction
Random Thoughts on Balance
Something I recently read in the roleplay entry of @ellekaldwin gave me pause, and I have been thinking about it. Elle wrote:
He had once said that the true measure of a life was not brilliance but balance.
Lol, I hear my sister talking. One of her favourite sayings is, “Everything in moderation.” She is a firm believer in a little bit of anything won’t hurt you. A little bit of salt, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of booze, a little bit of weed. Don’t punish yourself, but don’t overindulge. Have that cookie, but not the whole box!
If you lose balance, you fall over. We’re jugglers, aren’t we? Shift your weight in the wrong direction, and those balls are going to drop. Do not overthink, do not underthink, but give each concern its due. So many demands pressing on us—family, work, responsibilities, our personal goals—but we need to stay calm in the chaos, and juggle.
It’s like Aristotle’s Golden Mean. Choose courage over cowardice and rashness, choose modesty over humility and pride, choose honesty over secrecy and loquacity … and so on. The middle is where it’s at. Excesses and deficiencies make us lop-sided.
Even the heart works better at an even pace—better than tachycardia and bradycardia. In fact, life itself depends on every single internal chemical process being regulated and kept in equilibrium, in a system called homeostasis. If homeostasis is lost in a living body, sickness, or even death, results. Not too much, nor too little, is the rule of life. So, let nature be our teacher.
Life’s evolutionary history, too, advances by the guideline of “just good enough.” Perfection is never required, only the ability to see your offspring to their reproduction. If you and a buddy are running from a predator, you don’t need to be faster than the predator, only your buddy. Laggards get eaten, but there’s no need to be the fastest runner in the whole wide world. It will tire you out! Don’t go too slow, don’t go too fast.
You win some, and you lose some. Into every life, a little rain must fall. The sun comes out, too. Joy and sorrow touch us all. But too much good fortune, or too much misfortune, which both reside in random chance, can knock a person off-kilter. We’ve read about the lottery winners who end up losing everything, even their own sense of self, and we’ve heard about trauma survivors who have trouble going forward. The good news is that healing is possible, and no small part of that is regaining balance—finding flow and rightness—finding consonance. This takes recalibration.
Symmetry is pleasing to our brains, too, whether in aesthetics, or our psychology. I remember reading something about how our perception of the attractiveness of a face is tied in with the balance between its two sides. We’re hard-wired to seek symmetry. And, I’ve always been amazed by how clear my thinking is, how good my mind feels, after I’m in the pool. I mentioned that to my doctor, and she said it’s the symmetrical movement of my limbs while swimming that in large part uplifts my brain. That makes sense. If systems in this universe tend to equilibrium, it follows that my brain is rewarded when my body luxuriates in full-bodied, patterned movements.
And then in our approach to this existence. Moderate our perspectives. Choose understanding over blind acceptance and harsh judgment. Choose rational engagement over apathy and obsession. Look out as much as you look in. Listen, as much as you talk. Give as much as you take. Work, and play. Avoid extremes.
And have that cookie.
Something I recently read in the roleplay entry of @ellekaldwin gave me pause, and I have been thinking about it. Elle wrote:
He had once said that the true measure of a life was not brilliance but balance.
Lol, I hear my sister talking. One of her favourite sayings is, “Everything in moderation.” She is a firm believer in a little bit of anything won’t hurt you. A little bit of salt, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of booze, a little bit of weed. Don’t punish yourself, but don’t overindulge. Have that cookie, but not the whole box!
If you lose balance, you fall over. We’re jugglers, aren’t we? Shift your weight in the wrong direction, and those balls are going to drop. Do not overthink, do not underthink, but give each concern its due. So many demands pressing on us—family, work, responsibilities, our personal goals—but we need to stay calm in the chaos, and juggle.
It’s like Aristotle’s Golden Mean. Choose courage over cowardice and rashness, choose modesty over humility and pride, choose honesty over secrecy and loquacity … and so on. The middle is where it’s at. Excesses and deficiencies make us lop-sided.
Even the heart works better at an even pace—better than tachycardia and bradycardia. In fact, life itself depends on every single internal chemical process being regulated and kept in equilibrium, in a system called homeostasis. If homeostasis is lost in a living body, sickness, or even death, results. Not too much, nor too little, is the rule of life. So, let nature be our teacher.
Life’s evolutionary history, too, advances by the guideline of “just good enough.” Perfection is never required, only the ability to see your offspring to their reproduction. If you and a buddy are running from a predator, you don’t need to be faster than the predator, only your buddy. Laggards get eaten, but there’s no need to be the fastest runner in the whole wide world. It will tire you out! Don’t go too slow, don’t go too fast.
You win some, and you lose some. Into every life, a little rain must fall. The sun comes out, too. Joy and sorrow touch us all. But too much good fortune, or too much misfortune, which both reside in random chance, can knock a person off-kilter. We’ve read about the lottery winners who end up losing everything, even their own sense of self, and we’ve heard about trauma survivors who have trouble going forward. The good news is that healing is possible, and no small part of that is regaining balance—finding flow and rightness—finding consonance. This takes recalibration.
Symmetry is pleasing to our brains, too, whether in aesthetics, or our psychology. I remember reading something about how our perception of the attractiveness of a face is tied in with the balance between its two sides. We’re hard-wired to seek symmetry. And, I’ve always been amazed by how clear my thinking is, how good my mind feels, after I’m in the pool. I mentioned that to my doctor, and she said it’s the symmetrical movement of my limbs while swimming that in large part uplifts my brain. That makes sense. If systems in this universe tend to equilibrium, it follows that my brain is rewarded when my body luxuriates in full-bodied, patterned movements.
And then in our approach to this existence. Moderate our perspectives. Choose understanding over blind acceptance and harsh judgment. Choose rational engagement over apathy and obsession. Look out as much as you look in. Listen, as much as you talk. Give as much as you take. Work, and play. Avoid extremes.
And have that cookie.
