Blue Flower Power: Balance
Why a meaningful life requires both transcendence and grounding
The balance I want to talk about here is not the type of balance you may be expecting where it’s about optimization or emotional neutrality or finding some work-life balance. That’s not what the Balance in Blue Flower Power means at all.
The default position is always art.
Frank matters. Wonder matters. We need those moments of transendence, those moments when we are totally absorbed and moved. Even overwhelmed sometimes. Because being optimized is fine, but that's not the part of life that you remember.
Dead Poets Society
There’s a great quote in Dead Poet’s Society, where John Keating (Robin Williams) says:
"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering—these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love—these are what we stay alive for."
Exactly.
Everyone talks about the poetry part of this quote, but notice that reality matters too. You can't, like Frank, literally fly away forever on a flock of butterflies. Responsibilities matter, relationships matter. The practical world matters and is also “noble.”
But what happens when that “practical world” (reality)—the world we increasingly see— becomes all about efficiency, optimization?
There’s a temptation to run. That's the flipside—pure escape.
This is the tension in Sparkle Valley. How to stay fully alive while still being connected to reality.
Adaptation and Imbalance
This metaphor may be stretching it, but it popped into my head, and it gets at a part of balance that should be discussed—adaptation. I remember a few years ago when I was a runner and I had some knee pain. I treated the pain as the problem. I stretched, iced, and tried to fight through it.
But eventually, I realized that the pain was the symptom, and I had to attack the core problem. It turned out the problem was actually an imbalance. An imbalance between my quads and my hamstrings. Over time my body had adapted and started compensating around it and I needed to strengthen the muscle group that I’d been ignoring.
What this example shows is the human tendency to adapt. I functioned with this imbalance for a long time. You can overwork or overthink or over control. You can also over escape, getting so involved in creative work that you lose track of your life.
The Seduction of Extremes
Both sides (Frank and Hank) offer something seductive. Magic, Safety. But as we discover in Books 2 and 3, be careful what you wish for…
Carl Jung :
“The creative individual is one who can balance the rational and irrational, the conscious and unconscious, in order to access the full range of human experience.”
Nietzsche:
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.”
To achieve this balance (emotional wholeness) the Romantics turned to nature:
Wordsworth:
“Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher.”
John Muir:
“Keep close to Nature’s heart.”
Nature recalibrates us, showing us what balance is.
Life is spiky.
