Balance of Character

 

If you've read any of my other posts, you're aware how strongly I feel about balance and achieving a middle between two extremes.  

This is a painful lesson learned from being stricken with bi-polar illness - my special mid-life crisis at the tender age of 34.  

As human beings we are very prone to take things to extremes.  As a person prone to play with ideas sometimes I even confuse myself.  When we push an idea too far sometimes we pervert it.  Excess in behavior abounds, especially in this divided day and age.  Polarization is happening in the minds and ideologies of many and we are not calling it crazy ... yet.

From observing myself and others throughout my life I have become keenly aware of character traits that can be both a strength and a weakness.  Anything we perceive in another person as being weak, can also have its expression in strength, and vice versa.

For example, my brother-in-law is kind, considerate, and enjoys helping other people. He is gifted with his hands and he shares that gift in helping others.  Problem is, he does so to a flaw and often ends up being taken for advantage.   He is a genuine person full of integrity, and expects that others are as well = projection bias.  This asset is also his liability in a world where people are prone to take advantage.

When I honestly look at myself, I can clearly see where I am lacking, especially when depressed.  I find much contradiction and conflict in my character, even astrologically, both Chinese and traditional.  Although I take much of that stuff with a grain of salt and a shot of spirits, I am a fire sign and a water sign.  I am bold and timid.  Loud brash and aggressive, AND quiet shy and secretive.  Yet given all this opposition within me, there is much in me that is an attribute of balance and being centered.   Maybe the need to center being forced upon me by being put so frequently in opposing mental states. 

When manic I am the middle child, the middle son, and the Middle Man in the Meridian of Time - Cygnus X-1 in my primal state.  On Earth this is my best strength learned and maintained - Balance.  This is what I must strive for with all the disparate ideas that I allow to dance and intermingle on the stage of my mind, especially that manic mind that pierces the bounds of reality.    

Recently, during a controlled manic episode, the following lyric spoke to me so strongly and revealed to me my primal form (again, salt and shots - Margarita's anyone?).

V. cygnus: bringer of balance 

I have memory and awareness 
But I have no shape or form 
As a disembodied spirit 
I am dead and yet unborn 
I have passed into olympus 
As was told in tales of old 
To the city of immortals 
Marble white and purest gold 

I see the gods in battle rage on high 
Thunderbolts across the sky 
I cannot move, I cannot hide 
I feel a silent scream begin inside 

Then all at once the chaos ceased 
A stillness fell, a sudden peace 
The warriors felt my silent cry 
And stayed their struggle, mystified 

Apollo was atonished 
Dionysus thought me mad 
But they heard my story further 
And they wondered, and were sad 

Looking down from olympus 
On a world of doubt and fear 
Its surface splintered 
Into sorry hemispheres 

They sat a while in silence 
Then they turned at last to me 
'we will call you cygnus, 
The God of balance you shall be' 
- Neil Peart - Rush - "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres"

Cygnus X-1

This spoke deeply to me. Many black holes are bipolar when feeding of a nearby star. Even if all this was an outcropping of a creative mind manufacturing its own crack in a heightened sensory state, the message is still useful to me.  I must seek the middle between opposing primary ideas.  The middle is my key to sanity.  

It is my hope to find "the pocket", a maintainable hypo-manic flow state, where I am sane, yet engaged, active, and productive.   The threat of depression and coming unplugged is a very real and scary one.  The middle is where I must seek to be to thrive and where I can really feel alive and be productive.  Speaking of depression I quote the great Rob Halford, "I've had enough, I've had enough, Good God Pluck me!"   I am god's string that he has tuned, I am ready to be plucked and sing out my song.   I've had enough suffering and depression these past 12-15 years since my apple cart was turned over and I watched as all my apples rolled away.  I am seeking to rebuild, to regain.

Recently I used a scriptural quote to push a point on something I was Facebooking about, " For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matt 6:21).  It caused me to think, "What is my treasure?  Where is my heart?"

My treasure is existence, and the exploration of such.  My treasure is life, being ... it is so wonderful just to be, especially when in a frame of mind that is full of joy and appreciation - this is heaven on Earth.  This is the brain state I seek to be in, and awaken every day.  My treasure is also other people, whom I love.  My treasure is life, in all its forms and manifestations.  This is my overarching admirable trait - existence seeking understanding in love.

I recently wrote - 

My goal is to become like God
My bliss is to find him.
His joy is to see me coming
My joy is to find his arms open to receive me
I have been promised all that he has
and all the time I need to obtain it.

Now remains the question, "What to master first?"

This life is is all about mastery.  Looking at any admirable trait it becomes obvious that is can be bad or good depending on how it is handled and expressed - when taken to extremes it can become a problem.  This is the issue of my "illness".  I need to take much care in not letting my "in the pocket" state of flow roll wild and off the rails, or run so long and hard that my brain must crash into depression, delusion, or overload.  It is the moral to the story of the tortoise and the hare. I can be both, I have been both, and must now learn to put them together into a freakish offspring of Tortare (sounds like a weird Spanish cake).  This feat might be as the name suggests, torture.   Maybe the best solution is using each attribute as best fits the situation, and letting each inform the other.

I must too acknowledge my support system, my good wife.  She and my love for her helps to keep me grounded and balanced.  I recently wrote a short poem which expresses this:

He'd say every day without making a sound 
a thankful praise to the big one unbound, 
That Mr. Head in the Sky met Mrs. Feet on the Ground, 
and his love for her has kept him tied down, 
and her love for him has kept her around,
just like the Sun, Earth travels, round.
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Now, back to business.  Consider the following opposing traits and imagine how they can be either bad or good, or represented in degrees on a scale.  Think of each as they are best expressed in context, or may be a poor servant if expressed in the wrong context.

Focus  - Daydreaming
Sociability - Solitude
Honesty - Discretion
Kindness - Abuse
Love - Hate
Creative - Destructive
Giving - Stingy
Cool headed logical thinking - Sensitivity, emotion, empathy
Intelligence, logic, rational ability - creativity, unbounded thought
Confidence, ego, Self possession - uncertainty, humility, doubt
Specialization - Generalization
Big picture thinking - Small picture details
Curiosity, interest - Certainty, disinterest

.
.
.

I could go on and on, but the point is that with each of these elements there are upsides and downsides.  I sense that the key to finding the best of our character traits is learning best how and when to express them (degree and context).   Name any trait, emotion, or brain state and I can show it to be bad or good given context and degree.

Balance = Symmetry Synergy 
The human brain is both logical and spiritual when considering it all together.  Big picture thinking and perspective mixed with the directed focus and endurance of the left  brain areas = Symmetry Synergy.  It is pulling from the best traits of both sides and using them in a fitting manner as needed.  This finding the center is hard, and the center is a very difficult place to remain in any conflict. Conflicts are polarizing.

Please note the following generalizations between each side of the brain and types of thinkers are highly simplified, as things always occur in degrees and nuance, and not in absolutes.  Every normal person's mind is a mix of all of its parts.  This left brain, right brain jargon is very simple, and used to portray the attributes of each side.  In reality people are a combination of traits, it is a cohesive complicated combination of brain activity.  

Yet people can be shown to favor, or be prone to, one side of thinking over the other.  Like said, finding the center is hard, especially between very strong polarizing ideas and situations.  Most people are one side of center to a certain degree, soemtimes quite extreme.  I've divided the two types as simply either thinkers or feelers.

Concerning the conflicting sides of the brain, we know what we know scientifically in this area due to studying people with severe hemispheric damage.  In reality it is not such a clear division.  Most people's brains are whole and function very intermingled and integrated.  So put a grain of salt on the following serving (or sugar as you see fit). 

The Two Hemispheres

Upsides and Downsides.  

The following are generalizations with the attendant caveats at such.

Left Brain Thinkers (LBT) are specialists, directed, detail oriented, and have the strength of logical intelligence and endurance.  They tend to be specialists and sequentialists who are very knowledgeable on a limited set of observable experience.  

Upsides to LBTs = Success in the activity at hand - completion, discipline, focus of mind and effort, speed of acquisition, no distractions, very skilled in a few areas.  Very practical and pragmatic.

Downsides to LBTs =   Limited skill set, limited sight, blurred vision; short on emotion, and patience.  Poorly developled social skill, maybe even antisocial. See themselves as separate from others (maybe even better, smarter), low on compassion, empathy, or tolerance. Restricted view of what constitutes reality. They rarely feel deeply or cry.

Right Brain Thinkers (Feelers) (RBT) are divergent, accepting, big picture types.  They are primarily feelers, trusting emotion and sixth sense over rationality and logic.  They are adventurous and imaginative. They too can be very skilled as well at what they pursue.  They usually display more empathy for others.
  
Upsides to RBTs = Sensitive to others and usually get along well socially, as opposed to the stereotypical socially awkward science geek.   They have a larger capacity for empathy toward others, esp those of whom are in need.  They tend to live a richer life of emotions (highs and lows), they enjoy a broader scope of experience and interests.

Downsides to RBTs = Distraction, lack of discipline and follow through.  Can be anti-intellectual.  Can lack logic skills. Somewhat non-directed or focused.  Slow acquisition of information or skills which require strong discipline due to lack of single minded focus.  They often feel deeply and cry.

The Middle = Balance = The 3rd Element
The almost always forgotten 3rd element in any dichotomy, and here in thinking is the middle.   There is balance in the mind of a middle thinker, but they can tend to be "jack of all trades, and master of none", too.  Everything has its costs, and compromises.  

A good balanced middle thinker can draw on both sides as needed, they see both big and small, long term with the short.  They synthesize the two halves to create more than the sum of the two parts = synergy = mental fusion.  Most people if measured would fall somewhere left or right of this state but if their corpus collosum is functioning properly their brain halves are balanced in some degree.  As said earlier, the natural brain state is a mix and combination of all parts of the brain, that we consciously direct from one side or the other. In order to function and avoid perpetual conflict, and for our own comfort we choose a side.  

The brain is a muscle, and we strengthen which we activate (use actively the most) - this is how people can become encapsulated in a type of thinking; a character with character traits.  "As a man (woman) thinketh, so is he (she)."   

Your state of being and perceiving (your character) is the result of a bunch of neurons being thrown together and grown into a mind, and this mind being fed by environment and led by YOU from a very early stage (whatever that 'you' may be, Science doesn't really know).  As an agent of your own mind you can control (to some degree) what you will be - you will be the thoughts and activities you pursue, you will be the views you hold true - choose your poison carefully.  Choose what you do with great care and purpose.

Sorry that I'm rambling a bit, but reality and life within it is a very rich field of oppositions; and seeking to balance these oppositions within oneself is no easy task.

I love solving puzzles.  Fitting all the pieces together. I love playing games. I play with ideas and concepts and try to fit them together. You are your own best puzzle; your own best game; your own best mystery. Seek to balance the elements within you to create synergy of mind and character - a win-win of the game of self.  

I love win-win, and seek it everywhere I can.  Win-win is good (god), win-lose is evil (the devil).  Balancing your mind can be a win-win, and in so doing you will find god within.  But true too, your mind can be a win-lose, and in so doing part of you dies and loses, and in your pride, the devil inside.

I hope you will seek to balance what is good in you, and diminish the negative by seeking its opposite, or embracing what is good about it.  If you have hate make that hate pure by hating error and inefficiency but never people, and seek love for that which merits it.  Love will ameliorate hate and put it in its proper perspective.   Hate has its place too.   I hate inefficiency.  I hate lack of focus.  I hate my faulty memory.  I hate it when people hate each other.....I hate that I am confined to express my ideas through clunky words.  Come on Vulcan mind meld!

Overall, seek love, peace and balance of character - go after every good thing around you and within you. Most of all, and most scary - go after that which you lack or do not understand.  Tackle something that makes you uncomfortable and be willing to explore it without fear.  If you're a feeler, take a math class, or a course on logic, or read a good non-fiction book on the universe (or any other aspect of nature or reality that interests you).  If you're a thinker, open your mind to other spiritual possibilities - pray, meditate, take an art class or something creative.  Try to find and experience the divine...no matter how hard you don't believe it.

Whoever and where ever you are, I wish you love, peace, and happiness in its fullest in finding yourself, your whole self, and loving life (yours and others) as a whole person - Namaste.*

*When I say Namaste - I am by no means implying that I am your master, nor am I saying that you are mine.  I am saying that we are each our own best masters.