How good do we have to be? Life is so much more than just “feeding the beast”. Simply attempting to “satisfy appetites” is an endless, mindless pursuit if ever there was one. The unschooled body tends to cry out for more, more, more, even as an inner voice whispers a deficit within can never be satisfactorily filled from outside. Indeed, “you can never get enough of what you don’t need”.
Yet no matter how much we desire to follow our higher nature, seek the best within ourselves, develop our potential to its fullest, life is about balance. The key is to enjoy your animal nature fully without indulging it excessively or giving it unlimited range. That is the Golden Mean and it can be found in different places for each of us and varies according to our stages in life. The Golden Mean is a wonderful place to find, just know it is not static!
Closing Quotes:
“Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.” – Aristotle
“They are sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice: Act 1 Scene 2
“Moderation, the Golden Mean, is the secret of wisdom and of happiness. But it does not mean embracing an unadventurous mediocrity; rather it is an elaborate balancing act, a feat of intellectual skill demanding constant vigilance. Its aim is a reconciliation of opposites.” – William Robertson Davies, 1913-1995, Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, novelist
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier