The importance of balance

Don't deal in extremes. Balance is crucial.

Hi again. My previous post marked the introduction of the Balance category to my blog here. That particular piece was about balance with respect to food and nutrition; avoiding absolutes and lists of forbidden or always-must-eat foods both. Some time earlier, I copy-blogged about balance in the realm of exercise, as well.

However, the concept of balance – as I see it – goes far beyond that. Far, far beyond.

Every aspect of your life requires some kind of balance. Heck, the entire universe seems to function by balances of different kinds. See e.g. this for an example of the fleeting kind.

Indeed, were I ever to define some kind of formalized over-arching philosophy for my life, balance would be a central topic. Perhaps even the only topic.

Do maths, not yoga

Admittedly, balance does have a kind of oriental ring to it. Like balance of the chakras or whatever. Contort yourself into this yoga pose and everything will sort itself out. Doesn’t sound very realistic to us engineery people, does it? (Note: I’m not discounting yoga as an exercise, or as a relaxation technique either.)

Instead, my definition of balance is much more numerical. The relative ratios of a and b, in this aspect of life or that.

Let me stress that. Relative ratios.

Not choosing a or b.

Instead, balancing a and b. Feel like I’m repeating myself far too much already…

Let’s talk about colours for a sec. Life is rarely black and white. It shouldn’t be, and it need not be.  Instead, you are free to choose from a plethora of different colors, in all shades and levels of saturation, and textures even.

Just select your favourite out of those.

Or maybe favourite is a bad choice for word. Since, you know, you can’t really always choose everything based purely on what you’d like. One important kind of balance is the one between desire and responsibility. Those two don’t generally lead to the same choice. See where I’m going with this?

Few absolutes

So, not much simplicity of dogmatism to be enjoyed. There are some exceptions, of course. Murdering somebody is usually a big no-no, in any non-hypothetical scenario not involving suicide bombers at orphanages. Likewise, applying CPR to a lifeless person is usually a must (unless you’re a doctor who can legally pronounce someone dead). You can surely come up with a couple of similar examples, too.

But, apart from those few certainties, we are stuck with scales and ratios. This is both good and bad at the same time. Remember the topic.

Good – because we have literally infinite options, most of the time. No limiting ourselves to just two.

Bad – because it can and will of course be much more difficult to adjust a billion variables at the same time, rather than simply choose from two pre-determined alternatives.

This is probably why cults and restrictive diets are often so successful. They eliminate choice. It’s easier to abandon carbs altogether that try to adjust their numbers based on your current goal, and maybe some metabolic and appetitive differences. More gruesome examples can also be found easily enough, about relinquishing freedom for fixed orders.

It’s often easy to gain followers and following, by limiting their choice.

By contrast, trying to convince the masses from the superiority of 45 instead of 50 percent is not gonna be so easy, is it?

Not by far.

Heck, even I’m not doing it right now, really.

I mean, I’m not writing a million separate posts about not eating only protein, or investing all your money in biotech, or any either balanced-related topic either.

Instead, I taken avoiding dogmatism and turned it into a kind of dogma itself. This post, that is.

Thou shalt not see thy world in monochromatics!

Funny stuff. Paradoxical, if you will. Really twists your mind, if you let it.

Easier to define than to apply

Anyway, back to the slightly more practical level, now.

I’d like to think that what I’ve presented here is quite agreeable to most you, my dear readers. I mean on the idea level, as a concept. Using your own brain, and avoiding extremes most of the time.

Also, you’ll probably agree that the implementation part is probably anything but simple.

Thus, I’m not going to make your decisions for you here. I do have some strong opinions on topics I have lots of experience in, and even stronger convictions on ones I don’t. But, I’m not the ultimate authority on anything. Even when reviewing scientific papers I’m only one voice out of three.

Nevertheless, I will continue expressing my said opinions – my interpretation of the optimal balance point given certain conditions – in the form of blog posts and tweets. You can and of course should make your own adjustments, depending on your own level of expertise compared to mine.

For example, I’ve already written some pieces about diet and nutrition, and will continue doing so in the future as well. Likewise, you can find quite a few posts of mine approaching the process of decision-making and relative-importance-assigning from different angles.

This balance-thingy can simply serve as a common denominator to the lot, and maybe bring some sort of story-arc to my ramblings.

Let’s see how that turns out.

-Antti

The importance of balance