BALANCE

The Signature of Well-Being

When I was four, my family moved to Spain. I attended pre-school in the picturesque town of Santiago de Compostela where I wore one shoe that had an additional block of cork affixed to the bottom. This ham-fisted feature was designed to address my hip dysplasia but evidently not to win me friends.

Further, my preternaturally chubby cheeks were the target of the wrinkly, bony fingers of street-strolling gray-haired Spanish abuelas. On more than one occasion, a dotty old bat on the sidewalk would unilaterally lunge at me to pinch my fleshy face only to be met with a block of cork swung swiftly into her shin. Yes, admittedly, I was cheeky.

Then, I met Sara, my first love.

I was two and a half. She was three. We met at a playground adjacent to the church. I was smitten with her. Like a deal requires a buyer and a seller, so does love depend on a recipient and a provider. Sara was definitely the beloved and I was the lover.

Our first date, and every other date thereafter, transpired on a rusting teeter-totter. She rested daintily on one side of the long board and I, subsequently, plunked down on the other, a fulcrum between us. Despite her being my elder, I had more heft. My weightiness, unchivalrously, shot her up in the air, as I plopped to ground level.

From my position as a lowly sentry, I gazed up at my lofty princess longingly. It was abundantly clear by the panicked look in her eyes, however, that she did not enjoy the altitude of her exalted status. Gallantly, I focused on making myself lighter, instinctually shifting my weight inward toward the handles and then thrusting up mightily from my heels.

With this action, I jetted up and she went down, but too precipitously. She bounced rather violently on the hard-packed clay beneath her. And then, quite abruptly, gravity flexed its biceps and, to her obvious dismay, up again she went.

This time, I took a gentler approach and pushed up delicately from my crouch. The plank settled on its pivot, parallel to the ground. She looked at me and a big smile came across her face. We stabilized there for too little time, in a tenuous but perfect balance.

This must be love, I thought, the moment on the seesaw when no one’s feet are touching the ground.

Balance is a protean concept. It may refer to a condition in which different elements are in the correct proportions such as the balance of ingredients in a stew. It may also connote an even distribution of weight enabling something – like a seesaw - to remain steady.

Balance may refer to the relative volume of various sources of sound. There’s a knob for balance on your stereo system – if you remember what that is. Depicted by the zodiac sign Libra, a balance is also an apparatus for weighing matters ranging from turmeric to justice. Balance can be a counteracting force or even a majority opinion.

Balance can also be a verb. You can balance a hot cup of coffee on your knee though I don’t recommend it. You can balance the worth of one thing with another like the time value of money. And you can attempt, generally in vain, to balance your checkbook or work and family life.

Balance is also central to health. Balance both fosters and reflects healthy systems. In economics, balance is represented by a thriving middle class. In nature, through biodiversity. In our body politic, by cooperation and compromise.

And, of course, balance is fundamental to human well-being – spiritually, psychologically and physiologically.

The concept of balance echoes across the spiritual traditions of the East. In Buddhism, balance is encapsulated by the middle way, originally the path to enlightenment between hedonism and ascetism. Taoism understands balance as the foundational intelligence of nature.

Balance in nature occurs between countervailing forces. The natural world – and that includes you – arises as a coincidence of opposites. Up and down (as depicted). Hot and cold. Right and left. Hard and soft. Strong and supple. Being and non-being. And, yes, lover and beloved.

The fundamental intelligence of nature brings opposites into balance. However, the balance induced by nature is like that of a seesaw. It is unstable. If you’ve ever tried to balance on a slackline then you know it's precarity as a product of direct experience.

Balance in nature is a dynamic and ever-changing process that requires constant adaptation and adjustment. Of course, your organism is nature and it innately seeks out balance - a sensitive type of asymmetrical order that is perpetually influenced, for better and worse, by its environment.

The universe, along with your organism, is in a constant state of spontaneous emergence. It is an endless succession of simultaneous chemical reactions. Everything is in flux, constructing and deconstructing. Therefore, trying to hold on to a fixed position or state is futile, because it is impossible to evade the impermanence of life. Perfect balance can only be momentarily glimpsed. You see it and it’s gone.

Thus, balance is not about finding a perfect state, but about refining your skill to navigate the ups and downs of life with thoughtfulness and equanimity. It is about being in tune with the rhythms of nature, aligning yourself with its intelligence and being able to flow with the current of life, rather than resisting or trying to swim upstream.

Your body’s literal balance, spatial orientation and coordination is maintained curiously in your ear. The vestibular system is a complex network of structures, canals and fluids that detect gravity, acceleration and tilt and deliver this information to the brain. It works closely with other sensory systems such as the visual system and proprioception, your body's sense of its own position in space, to help you walk to the coffee maker without falling over. Given my love of espresso, I am grateful for this feat of engineering.

Psychologically, balance points to the stability of one's mind or feelings. We endeavor to cultivate a serene mind, one not pulled too dramatically to the thinner edges. We attempt to avoid the over-assignment of advantage or disadvantage to any situation. We try to see events for what they are and not be emotionally swayed by our judgments of them. We often call this equipoise “centeredness.”

Physiologically, we strive for a balanced immune system, for hormone balance and for balanced blood sugar. In fact, virtually every system of human physiology is an exercise in balancing opposing activities and nurturing a sensitive equilibrium. Healthy systems always cluster toward the middle.

Balance in your organism is called homeostasis, the moment on the seesaw when no one’s feet are touching the ground.