Nothing real (or made up) can exist without two balancing extremes. In order for something to exist, there must be a force allowing it to, and more than one thing can not exist unless there is a counter force, both equal and opposite, that is preventing the first force from becoming everything. These opposing forces work to force everything into a elegant equilibrium state, and allow for the beauty of the universe. From this concept, understanding is born, emotions and logic can interpret what we perceive, and place meanings, and names, and concepts on everything. The very existence of matter is based on the neutralizing complimentary forces of positive and negative attractions and repulsions. without this balance, atoms could not exist, our earth would not be in orbit, nor would it be anything but random dispersion.
Lightness and weight are complimentary forces. By definition, lightness is the lack of weight, and therefore, there cannot be one without the other. This concept comes up in many religious and cultural contexts, such as the concept of yin and yang in Chinese culture. There is no shadow without the sun. No force without flexibility. There can be no closure without an opening. No peace without a storm to be found within.
The idea of perfect balance, brings forth the question as to what it is we are all trying to achieve: Greatness? Individual or collective? What is greatness? It is not merely getting what you want, nor is it having everything you desire. There is something more to greatness. The path which leads you there must be long and hard, tough and heavy. And on this path, weighs just as much importance as the end result since neither one can exist without the other. This path must offer up countless opportunities to quit along the way. Yet when you finally arrive at greatness, through the long hard road that you travelled, it is most often taken lightly, as if there was not much to it. Those who achieve greatness, and accept it with the balance of weight and lightness, greet it with an unpretentious nonchalance. These people have travelled the tough road and experienced the weight and so taking greatness lightly gives them the ultimate appreciation for what they’ve done. Therefore the end product, means nothing without the journey, and the journey in it’s self lacks the personal compensation we yearn for without the result.
We all want to get away; to escape, from stress, from responsibilities. We demand time off, relaxation times, weekends, vacation. But to be honest with ones self, one must ask “what am I getting away from in the first place”! If we’re always trying to get away, then why don’t we stay away for good. Why must we put ourselves through agony for the majority of our conscious lives, in order to enjoy the minority? The opposite also applies, there are some who live without intent, wondering why they haven’t been given a chance. They lounge around, pretending, but that’s all. They go through their entire lives sometimes, without ever waking up from the hypnotic state of nothingness. These two extremes allow us to understand that neither makes very much sense. The solution, or at least a proposition, is that we see everything as one.
Nature does not discriminate. we must look at examples that don’t involve ourselves, and from all perspectives of “ourselves”. By this I mean that we must asses ourselves as humans, and so we mustn’t look for answers within humans. A problem can not be solved within the same paradigm from which it was created. If we wish to asses ourselves as life forms, we must look at the non-living. When we do this at the full capacity by which our feeble minds can handle, we grow, and we can begin to see the harmonious equilibrium in which everything outside of “ourselves” works. And then understand, or guess, that we’ve found the direction in which we must travel. Once we begin along this path, there is no turning back, there are no opportunities to quit or stop, and no intention to do so. Here, on only here, begins the perfectly fused existence of lightness and weight.
Andrew Liberio
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