Balance Is Not A Happy Medium
by robin on August 24, 2011
I’ve been thinking today about the tension between balance and extremes. This tension is, at the moment, deeply personal, because speaking of extremes, I live in a teepee while working as a Community Manager for a very forward-thinking start-up in the Bay Area. In other words, I spend my days immersed in social media, and I spend my nights with the crickets and the stars.
We like to say that balance comes from a happy medium, a place between extremes (drunkenness and sobriety, obligation and fun, hot and cold) that feels just right. But there is no such place. There can’t be, at least not for any length of time. You might think you’ve found it for a moment, but the harder you cling to it, the faster it slips away.
What if balance isn’t a happy medium at all? What if, rather than being a place between two extremes, we find balance in the extremes themselves? In the midst of this crazy, high-tech world into which I’ve very suddenly thrown myself, living in a teepee gives me a sense of balance because it is extreme. It’s quiet, a little dirty, and occasionally I find a beetle on the wall. This morning when I woke up, I saw Venus peeking through the folds of fabric, and there was no veil between me and the newborn air. It did not feel extreme at all. It felt, rather, like something close to sanity.
The problem with happy mediums is not the mediums themselves; it is our constant pursuit of them. What if we let go of striving after some mythical sense of balance? What if we said to hell with happy mediums and simply went about living happy lives? Who knows? If we cease to pursue it, we might even find that every now and then, the very sense of balance we were looking for comes and sits upon our shoulder.
Tagged as: balance, extremes, teepee
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I think you’re onto something, “Sleeps in the Backyard.” (Like “Dances with Wolves,” right?)
Balance is is desirable, but there needs to be flexibility in either direction if we’re going to make it. Balance means more than indefinitely sitting at 74°F, partly cloudy, with a comfortable breeze. It means being able to maintain course in the face of unrelenting extremes. How do we maintain balance when Old Man Winter dumps six feet of snow on us or when it’s 110°F?
I guess life isn’t a straight line so much as a trend in a general direction. Balance, then, is an average of the extremes. Interesting perspective, Robin. Thanks for sharing. Hope teepee life continues to inspire.
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Brian, thanks for commenting. I’m already amazed at how inspiring teepee life has been, and I’m sure you’ll hear more about it soon.
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Exactly! Well said.
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Thanks, Greg. When are you coming back to the Bay Area?
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You’re so right Robin. I never feel more solid, balanced and clearheaded than during a vacation in the wild, when I sleep rough, go to bed when it’s dark, rise when it’s light and sit on logs or the ground instead of cushioned chairs.
Now that I think about it, how weird that I spend most of my time surrounded by all this furniture, technology and cushioning in order to save enough money to get away for two weeks, sleep in a tent and feel like I’m really living!
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Nancy, it’s funny, isn’t it, how much “unnaturalness” we take for granted in our daily lives, especially when it’s for the sake of earning money to go on vacation and “get back to nature”? Nature never left – we’re the ones who left nature!
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I don’t really want balance, I want to drag the whole damn world over to the end of the scale – over to the edge. Imagine living your whole life on the edge, the place where innovation often originates, The tension between the edge and infinity should be enough to make the day interesting.
I’m amazed to hear about the teepee… you really are a new age woman.
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To be fair, the teepee is only temporary. However, that won’t stop me from trying to make #teepeelife a trending topic on Twitter during the month of September.
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