On Balance
Every few days at the YMCA I stand on one leg atop a balance trainer. Picture an air-filled rubber ball about two feet in diameter, sliced in half, with the flat side facing up. Picture a man standing on the flat top, teetering as the round part of the half-ball rolls slightly on the floor with every tiny shift of weight.
My goal is to stay on the ball for 45 seconds. Then switch legs. The leg muscles tense, relax, grow tense again. My arms spread wide like a tight-rope walker’s balance stick. After about 20 seconds, my leg muscles begin to burn. I can feel my stomach muscles tighten. Some days 45 seconds pass fairly easily, and I hop off the ball in satisfaction. Other days, ten seconds are the best I can do. I wonder what’s wrong. I’m off kilter somehow. My focus is off. Maybe anxieties are throwing me off the ball. I get back on, grow more anxious, and fall off again.
Everywhere I see falling off the ball. You don’t have to be a psychologist, sociologist, or political scientist, none of which I am, to see that almost any social or interpersonal problem involves, in part, a failure or inability to find balance. Climate change, poverty, race relations, religious extremism, terrorism, marital problems, conflicts at work, sexism, you name it – each involves a failure to find balance between human need and the natural environment, or between personal success and social justice, between wealth and deprivation, between cultural identity and inclusiveness, between my way and yours.
As a culture we rarely teach balance, and we rarely learn it except in a halting, haphazard way. We are fascinated, often enthralled, by extreme positions, even as we deride them. Super-charged by social and mainstream media, video games, and advertising, polarized positions too often engulf our perspectives. Ordinary life is seen as boring. Looking at a car ad? We’re not just buying a car that will take us reliably for groceries or to work; we’re buying a vehicle that bounds up a mountain and hard-stops right at the edge of a cliff with an amazing view. Not only that, if we disagree on something, my way is right. Your way is absurd. Your way is dangerous. You should be put in prison. You should be beheaded. You should be targeted by a drone’s missile.
Extremes are rigid. Stiff. With no give. If you’re stiff on the balance trainer, you fall off the ball. If you’re flexible while keeping focused on your goal, you can shift as needed.
Balance often seeks the middle ground, and the middle ground is often seen as bland. Compromise is seen as weak, as giving up. But balance, middle ground, and compromise in pursuit of a goal are not weak, or easy, or slack. They are a place of dynamic tension. They are where the energies of opposing forces come together, hum with movement and counter-movement. They are where and how solutions emerge.
It’s probably too obvious to point out that our planet is a ball, and our lives on it are a balancing act. If we want to stay on the ball, we need to improve our sense of balance. And as others are on the ball with us, we need to adjust with their movements, too, and they with ours. It’s not an easy thing to do. In fact, it’s really hard. But as with my time on the ball at the Y, we can get better at it. With attention and practice, we can find the middle ground and stay upright longer and longer. My new goal is a full minute on each leg.