The Benefits of Balance
I’ve always been a middle of the road kind of person. Clinging to extremes never made much sense to me. That’s not to say I don’t see the value of the extremes. I just tend to think that, in this world, the truth always seems to rest somewhere in the middle. I think politics is the best example of this. Of course, politics is a charged topic, but I’m not talking about parties, personalities, propaganda, or any of the things that tend to make politics such a lightning rod. I’m talking more about the most basic ideologies that guide politics in the U.S.: conservatism and progressivism. Conservatism stems from the belief that the society should stick to the status quo and maintain traditional values., whereas progressivism advocates for regular change in an effort to constantly improve life for everyone in the society. I tend to agree more with progressive policies, That said, I do recognize that the radical change that would be needed to implement some of those policies could be catastrophic if pushed too fast. For example, progressives want the military downsized. I agree that America is too warlike. However, I also know that if we could somehow half the military tomorrow with the snap of a finger, it would cause chaos for our country. Our existence as a nation is too caught up in the war machine. When you’re stuck in a quagmire, yanking free isn’t necessarily the most beneficial way of extricating yourself. Sometimes you have to slowly work your way out. Sometimes you need a progressive goal achieved through a conservative approach.
There will always be competing ideas, methods, plans, etc... Balance doesn’t mean giving each of those things equal priority. It means finding the right proportion of each to achieve the best outcome. It also means understanding that there is a time and a place for everything. Maybe today the need is to move fast. Tomorrow, slow and steady might be the ideal way to go.. Maybe, a moderate state that’s neither fast nor slow is the ultimate goal. In my opinion, that is balance. Often, finding the right balance isn’t the key to achieving the solution to a problem. It is the solution to the problem.
Here’s the thing about balance though. It can be hard to achieve, and just as easy to break. It’s not always something that can be recaptured when its lost, and even if it is reclaimed, that doesn’t guarantee that the damage from its loss will be undone. Our world often seems like its balancing on a knife’s edge. Unfortunately, it’s possible that if we lose our balance, we will face a fall from which there is no recovery.
In Zeal, the Vespers created a paradise. Balance was at the core of the world’s idyllic state. Order/Chaos, Light/Dark, Life/Death-these things all existed in perfect proportions, and the world thrived. The Vespers made a mistake that broke the world’s balance, and the world never recovered. Zeal continued on, but paradise was lost.
Our world has never been a paradise. Maybe that means we’ve never found the right balance, or maybe it just means that the real world is more complex than the fantasy worlds we create. I don’t know what true balance looks like in this world. We humans are constantly fighting, often in an attempt to prove that that one outlook is absolutely superior to the other. We often lose sight of the fact that, though our suggested means for achieving our goals are different, the goals themselves are the same. If we all want to achieve the same thing, is it really so hard to believe that genuine cooperation and compromise are the keys to success? What are cooperation and compromise but commitments to find balance? Maybe one day we won’t be so committed to extremes, and we will learn to see past our differences. then, the world will get to see what benefits a little balance can bring.
