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I was struck recently by the idea of balance. In our lives—particularly the urbanized, non-natural existence that defines most of us these days—in such a situation it is almost impossible to avoid being pulled, or thrown, off balance. We become too this or too that, eventually recognize this if we're lucky, and in redressing the problem often become too that or too this.
It's good to support and exercise the right brain. I love living in the right brain, which is lucky because I seem to be residing there more and more the older I get, probably because the left brain is failing me. I don't want to remember the house number of the place I am going; I just want to get to the general area and then right-brain it. I don't want to reason or figure out or think. I just want to daydream and piddle and play with my coloured pencils and markers.
Now, how much of the above paragraph is new and how much is who I have always been? How much is just mental laziness? Or pride? A reluctance to recognize how very diminished are my left brain's abilities. I can't tell you, of course, because that would require too much logical thinking.
But I do admit that balance might be better. Much as I might want to sink into the warm comfort of my right brain, I know that reality requires (now THERE are two "r" words I could do without)—that I let the pendulum of my being move a bit toward the rational.
Balance. I am a Capricorn, thus so firmly rooted in the practical that it took years for me to acknowledge another side of me. So how do we balance the spiritual and the earthly? The Buddhists have a story about the monk who carries water as his task. Someone asks what his life will be like when he achieves Nirvana and he answers that he will carry water.
In other words, go for the spiritual, if seeking is your way, but bring it back to the earth, the practical, the real. This is the world in which we live right now, and here we must be. We are here to experience what is: the pain and loss, the joy, the light and the dark, simple pleasures, desire—all those contradictory feelings and situations—and it is up to us to live through them all. While, of course, maintaining our balance.
How difficult this can be. And even in the midst of struggling we often feel that we are doing it wrong. (Though maybe that's a distinctly Western notion—that idea of not doing things right, despite knowing that it's not a question of right or wrong but just of doing.)
I picture a world of beings working through the business of living. Each of us overbalances to one side or another, then straightens up, then overbalances in the other direction. The way is not smooth. But I'm pretty sure that balance is the key.
When next I find myself bent out of shape about one thing or another, I will remember not to let myself be pulled off centre by the vicissitudes of my life. I will accept, welcome, and deal with the highs and the lows, remembering that a balanced load is easier to carry than an unbalanced one.
Perhaps I'm better off keeping these pretentious ramblings to myself. But wait! Surely such self-recrimination is a form of imbalance. A balanced approach might be to say "H'm. Wonder where all that came from." And then move on without chastising myself.
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