On Balance

Balance. A simple word but so hard to apply. Hard – not in the way that back-breaking labour is hard. Hard like trying to grab a fish in a pond hard or picking up a slimy noodle from a slippery floor hard.

If achieving balance were merely a matter of allocating time and applying strength, we would be well rounded, balanced, people. I would at least. Were it so easy! Achieving balance is slippery, like trying hard not to think about something.

“Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky

When I was in art school, calligraphy pens cost a bomb. No Chinese imports back then. I made do with grinding down regular fountain pen nibs or whittling bamboo reeds from Cubbon Park, to create calligraphy dip-pens. I tried hard to achieve the same look like the more expensive pens. The effort brought fulfilment, contentment.

Now I have pens, but I don’t write. It is the same way with my books, video games, computing devices, consumer software, clothing, exercise gear, kitchen gear…

I feel like I tend to do more with less. That somehow I find greater joy and fulfilment when I have to make do.

Must I then chuck everything I own and be a hermit? I’ve tried that too – but it turns out it is counterproductive because you run up against the big daddy of constraints – Society and Social Order. No, contentment for me floats in between the much and the little.

To attempt to live a life in which there is no horse below and no rider above.