Balance

Planets follow a stable and smooth momentum, greatly affected by gravity which is not even delivered (as far as we can tell) in discrete jumpy quantum units. Balance for people is not like that, as anyone who has tried to walk on a railroad rail knows.

From afar, our bodies appear in a lovely homeostatic serenity. Close up, we are a seething brew of forces and counter forces, reactions and counter reactions, always threatening to be out of control, swerving this way and that, knocked back on track by another process. Ecologies are much the same.

We should learn from that. Our life path should never resemble that of a planet. We need highs and lows, fits and starts, rush and stop. Adventure and contemplation, in struggle, making a satisfying whole.

That is the core of the problem with any kind of fanaticism. It lacks balancing forces, which means it lacks life and is as dead as a careening asteroid _ which can still, of course, cause damage.

We should always be on guard against obsession, for it is a dangerous runaway problem.

And, in spite of those telling us to strive to be all that we can be, the true goal is to become as chaotically balanced as possible.