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Matters of Balance
I know I should begin this long-delayed essay with a sentence or two acknowledging “these challenging times,” with hopes that you’re safe and healthy and finding ways to cope with the extra stress. Then I should launch into some sage advice of my own, or at least some humorous or off-kilter ideas (chocolate, wine, tying all the masks together to use as a jump-rope). It’s expected; everyone else is doing it, because it’s supposed to help us feel better. The naming, the acknowledging, helps us feel—if not in control, then more balanced in the chaotic seas upon which we find ourselves.
But I’m not beginning that way even though I do hope good things for all of us and even though I know such words can help, because I’ve heard the same phrases over and over so often that I doubt the sincerity of the words, even when they’re spoken by people I know and trust.
And because of this matter of balance. Of this belief in balance.
I want to talk about balance—the balance that we long for, that doesn’t really exist, never has existed, can never exist no matter what self-proclaimed self-help experts claim.
I want to talk about perpetual imbalance, about the wobbling we invariably do, how we’re built for that wobbliness; about those continual movements, adjusting and readjusting so that we stay upright (or at least not too far canted for too long) as we strive to not fall over; about how these movements keep us strong, healthy, and upright, which means that imbalance keeps us strong, healthy, and upright.
(I am also questioning why balance always means “upright” and why balance doesn’t seem to apply when I’m stretched out on my back in the lush spring grass of my backyard, staring at the clouds competing with blue sky for their share of the sun.)
I want to talk about how everything is a matter of balance, and that balance, being a lie from the outset, is impossible to attain let alone maintain, so how can anything be a matter of balance?
And how, some how, balance matters, it always matters.
I want to talk about how, in my own striving for balance, I am a lost puzzle piece looking for the place where I fit, the place where the pieces around me snap cleanly into place, supporting me so I don’t wobble or get lost under the sofa. I don’t want to get lost, but I also don’t want to be squeezed in tight on all sides. Maybe I’m an edge or corner piece, a position where I can have some breathing room, a little space, while still being in touch with the other pieces of the big picture.
Is balance at odds with ambiguity?
Or is it a necessary, perhaps even crucial, element of it?
Ambiguity is not knowing: the answer, the outcome, the definitive cause, the certain effect. Tolerance for ambiguity is both innate and learned. As individuals, we are born with higher or lower levels of tolerance for ambiguity. We can also learn skills that increase our tolerance for the anxiety and fear that ambiguity triggers.
Believing we can achieve balance—and maintain it!— is akin to believing we have all the answers, or that if we just act right now with this decision (which feels like an answer), everything will be fine, or if not fine, at least we will have acted, and acting feels like an answer, feels like closure, feels like we’ve done something measurable, verifiable, productive.
But have we?
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