The Dance Of Mortality

∞Ω∞

In this thriving, vibrant garden,
This strange and shadowy place,
Both life and death dance 
With valiant, sordid grace.

In this ethereal domain,
That wears a material, corporeal face,
They dance through wind and rain,
Maintaining their relentless pace.

The flowers will all bloom,
And the gardner watches, waits,
Picking where and when to groom.
Cutting out the ones he hates…

Of course, in time each flower dies.
Each blooming flowers’ petals must
Yield their shape and color,
Withering, wilting, and turning to dust.

But death makes way for rebirth,
The garden surviving, if only just,
Flowers ceaselessly renewed,
By new blossoms’ thrust.

And so both life and death do dance
With valiant, sordid grace,
In this sparse, violent garden,
This strange and shadowy place.

∞Ω∞

Balance Scales & Railway Hand Cars

I don’t subscribe to duality; personally, I think it’s bullshit – and so is the idea of balance that usually accompanies it. My alternative to that popular conceptualization of reality is… singularity, multiplicity, and polarity. In a nutshell, I look at it like this: there is a multiplicity of singularities within singularities, and many of them are polarized with other particular singularities (so much so that if you introduce someone to the concept of duality, it’ll probably line up well enough with their own observations and experiences). When it comes to how to treat these polarities though, my suggestion would be the same either way, and since duality is so popular I’ll just confine myself to polarities for the moment…

Let’s roll with the assumption that one thing and another can balance each other out on a scale like the one you see below.

For the sake of effective metaphor, let’s then say that the scale represents you. I look at the left and see thesis. To the right, antithesis. Each side attempts, naturally, in accordance with its nature, to become greater than the other side… more significant, more powerful, more important, more dominant, heavier. Eqilibrium would presumably grant you, the scale, a sense of stability, and calls for the violence of each side to tone down, gradually becoming balanced through a suppression of their natural function. The pursuers of balance, and their teachings, would have you stabilize the scale and attain equilibrium. I, on the other hand, encourage enablement of the violent struggle, both inner and outer.

One side of the scale will inevitably become dominant, and the other will – relative to the side it seeks to overcome – appear to be weaker, but only because its opposition on the other side of the scale has become stronger. Balance accepts the validity of weakening the dominant side just as much as strengthening the weaker side. In most cases, it’s essentially an excuse not to advance. The answer for a living being, in order to thrive, is to seek greater weight, importance, and empowerment of the weaker side until it becomes dominant, and then to do the same with the other side when it is the lesser side… back and forth.

A railway hand car is nearly perfect for illustrating the difference. While it may fall short in that it’s used on a track, and with people it’s common to wander, to get derailed, or to deliberately avoid such a focused framework or movement, that’s something I’m willing to overlook because is shows that if you want forward motion… you will not get it from balance. From balance, all you will get is illusory stability.

Even if you compare a man or woman to a scale, a scale can only move if someone else picks you up and places you somewhere of their choosing, or the violence of physical dissonance jarrs it out of place. With the former, consider it’s meaning: your fate is out of your hands, you’re allowing other people to guide the course of your life while you concentrate on keeping yourself stable. And when it comes to dissonance, moving yourself might not get you where you want to go at first, and might be frustrating and inefficient. But when you harness the struggle and convert its energy into motion you can become more proficient at guiding your own course. Through trial and error, you can learn to navigate by your own hand.