In the universe there are gods, the four elements, the dumb beasts, and the plants. Each fulfills the point of their existence fully by virtue of acting in harmony with their one individual and perfect quality. Humans possess the qualities of these entities that make up the universe. The problem with humans is rooted in finite space, by possessing some of all of these qualities there can never be enough room for perfection in one. When this lack of storage space in one body couples with the ability to choose a quality as dominate one day and another to dominate the next—our unique personalities—we remain perpetually off balance. We have less reason than the gods, desire and instinct to a lesser degree than dumb beasts, only some of the four elements, and our powers of nurture and growth are dwarfed by the abilities of plants. Ironically, this deficiency makes us unique. So said Pythagoras 2500 hundred years ago after watching Greeks wipe their asses with corn cobs hanging on ropes in open public toilets.
Buddha, who lived in a different part of the world at roughly the same time had a slightly different take on us. He said we lived on this planet with respect to four noble truths. First, human existence is all about suffering. Second, our suffering comes from craving. He didn’t say what we craved but implied everything. Third, the end of craving puts an end to all suffering. I’m guessing he never had a summer cold. No one craves that, or a pollen allergy, or metastatic cancer. Finally, there is a path we could follow that would end our suffering. He called that path the Noble Eightfold Path, kind of like a healthy diet for the mind. The problem with that path is the same problem we find linked to Weight Watchers or any other food restriction. As you’re getting healthy in the long term, your risk of sudden death from boredom rises exponentially.
Now, both guys were smart, obviously. But once a year I’m reminded that they missed the real key to a happy and well-lived life. Maybe they missed it because they couldn’t observe it at the time, or maybe they both suffered with their unique and incomplete flaws. Maybe they just didn’t crave enough knowledge. The key comes, not from humans or animals or plants, but from the planet itself and its relationship to the universe. That’s right. The winter solstice occurs right on time once a year every year. The earth tilts on its trek around the sun and in one instant of time the north pole reaches the farthest tilt away—23.5 degrees—from the sun, leaving the North Pole in total darkness all day. At the very same time the northern hemisphere has its shortest day the southern hemisphere has its longest, leaving the South Pole in total daylight for the exact same length of time. Solstice means the sun stands still in Latin.
This is the finest example I know of concerning balance. For one instant there exists a perfect yin to a perfect yang, the example of which can be expanded all through nature. Bees pollinate flowers, without which there would be no honey for bees to eat. Plants provide oxygen for animals and they, in turn, provide CO2 for plants. The moon keeps the oceans functioning by controlling tides. This harmonious list could go on for pages. Without balance nothing lives, including humans. We are all connected to everything. Therein lies the main problem, half Pythagoras and half Buddha. All of the universe does exactly what it’s supposed to all the time. Where do you think the laws of physics comes from? All of nature fulfills its purpose completely. How do you think life on earth is able to cycle and continue? Humans are the only cog in this great wheel. We are flawed and unique in our flaws. Our flaws create our cravings. We do stupid and selfish stuff that damages the world around us all the time, and we do it happily. That could be corrected if people were willing to live in harmony with each other and the environment like the rest of nature. Alas, we are not. The most important thing people, collectively and individually, can obtain is balance. The most difficult thing for people to maintain is balance.
Myself, I have spent a several decades looking for equilibrium while craving excess in all things. I was a child when I first sensed this struggle, but at the time I wasn’t aware enough to name it much less understand its future implications. For years, it just felt like walking in and out of my own shadow. Here I am now at the age of 73, looking back at the events that sent me spinning through my life like a top always twirling just fast enough to stay whirling but never fast enough to remain upright on the perfect and tiny balance point for long.
That’s not to say my life is more miserable than anyone else’s. I mean, look at me. Here I am sitting under a tree watching the river flow by with a notebook open. I’m in a copse of trees reflecting quietly on an old Welsh phrase, dod yn at fy hoed, which means idiomatically returning to a balanced state of mind, or literally “to return to trees.” From my perch on this wooden bench, I can look left or right and see other people on other benches or walking leisurely along the footpath that follows the river around its cut bank. Others are eating lunch. Some are holding hands. Some are homeless and sleeping, maybe hoping to find themselves in a better place by travelling through their dreams. Beyond the park’s boundary boats bob up and down on gentle swells, moored to concrete slips waiting for the Sunday morning sailors to arrive and drift away into bliss.
The sun is warm, but not hot. The sky is blue and the scent of milkweed, hyacinths, water willows, and Black-eyed Susan, braid into the smell of rotting driftwood and fish reminding me of a line from an old Bob Dylan song floating around in my head these past fifty years—he notbusy being born is busy dying.I have no right to expect more simply because I can crave more. Look at that bee dive into the calyx of that flower. Look at that rabbit twitching his nose beside the willows. Hear the crows cawing, the crickets rasping, and the wind singing over the ripples in the water.
If I step in this river right now and again in the exact same spot a minute later, is it the same river? Or is the river like me, the same yet different? That’s an existential question no tree need ever ask to maintain its balance in the chaos of life around it. Okay, there I go losing my grip on the present tense and drifting into the fog where memory and imagination collide. Isn’t that where most of us become confused. Is the rise of confusion an unbalancing or a step toward correcting an imbalance? I’m still unclear on that.
Some worshipers of lenient gods arrive and guide their boats from ramp to river’s edge or unmoor them from the concrete pylons till the brown water becomes a palette, a rainbow of mud and diesel fuel. In go Liquid Asset, Miss Behavin’, Bite Me, Wet Dream, Hydrotherapy. What better way to serve on Sunday than glide along with Jesus in a wake of sunlight across the foam of jet skis beneath heavenly sky. The current swirls in joy along the cutbank and the holy hum of outboards harmonize with the squeals of dreams that ride the waves. These aquatic conquistadores do not see, or if they do, do not care to acknowledge, the moment begin to equalize, the yin join yang. A pickup truck along the levee road far above me separates bicycle from rider and returns them both to earth in a knot of steel and flesh.
Even if a vague shiver drifts like the mist from a passing barge along their spines, this random sacrifice— this propitiatory misery—is forgotten with the next deep breath. The Sunday boaters are not concerned enough with balance to notice what has just taken place. Theirs is only the craving of a bored and incomplete species. Ah, we humans, what we worship is what we want and what we want has little to do with what we need. Pythagoras was correct. We are as flawed as we are blessed, as dumb as smart, as peaceful as violent, and as hopeful as we are hopeless. Maybe that is our balance.
Jim McGarrah, Author 