Moderation in All Things: To Include Moderation

“Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.” ~William James

Balance, equilibrium, symmetry. There are times to put up fences and build walls and reinforce comfort zones. There are times to tear down fences topple walls and stretch comfort zones until they snap.

In a world with too many fences, walls, and reinforced comfort zones, we need more people who are capable of drunken expansion. We need more uprootedness and toothiness in the face of entrenchment and toothlessness. We need more upheaval, more playfulness, more trickster jazz.

Outflanked by rigid Apollonian infrastructure, it’s on us as individuals to dig down deep for that Dionysian dissonance.

Don’t get me wrong, moderation is a beautiful thing. One of the most important virtues. But when its beauty becomes a blinding light, we need a scar or a beauty mark to offset the overwhelm. When beauty becomes stifling and suffocating and intoxicating, you must be able to turn away: to stretch your soul, to breathe, to remedy. And there is nothing more beautiful than Beauty besmirched and made more beautiful.

As Edgar Allan Poe pointed out, “There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.”

We need some strangeness in the proportion. We need an oddity in the ossification. We need a thorn on the rose, a stinger on the bee. We need a crack in the perfection so the imperfect light can seep in.

This idea is expressed through several cultural and philosophical concepts. Think Kintsugi and Wabi-Sabi: The art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The philosophy treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. The cracks are highlighted, making the repaired piece arguably more beautiful and unique than the original. They esteem objects that are marked by wear, weathering, or natural processes, finding elegance in natural simplicity and the “tarnished” nature of aging.

Or think of the concept of Patina. In art and architecture, patina is a green or brown film produced by oxidation over a long period. It represents wear, age, and exposure to the elements, a literal besmirching that antique collectors and artists revere as adding character and history.

Or think of the Vulnerable Hero who earns his/her “scars” over a lifetime. In storytelling and human psychology, a flawless character can be unrelatable. When a character or a person endures trauma and heals, their emotional scars often add depth, resilience, and a newfound beauty to their persona.

We are each moving canvases, personified portraits, embodied art pieces moving through the course of a lifetime. Moderation keeps us grounded, disciplined, and healthy.

And Health is primary. Health is the benchmark. It’s the core of universal law. And moderation is Health’s secret decoder ring. Without this benchmark, you cannot discern what is useful from what is not. Without this benchmark, you cannot discern when you’ve gone too far.

But health will only get you so far. It can teach you moderation and temperance. But it won’t get you outside the box, the comfort zone, the domesticated bliss, the indoctrination, the cultural conditioning, or the dogmatic mental paradigm. It will not help you see through the blinding light. It will not get you past the intoxication of “perfection.” Only audacity and courage can do that.

A well-lived life requires at least a little discomfort and danger. All things in moderation of course, but too much comfort can lead to laziness, softness, and brittleness. Too much safety can lead to privilege, blind faith, and the tendency to take things for granted.

So, the task becomes discovering the sweet spot. Where does safety meet freedom, and how do we keep freedom just far enough ahead of safety that we don’t kill ourselves? Likewise, where does comfort meet courage, and how do we keep freedom just far enough ahead of comfort that we are consistently stretching our comfort zone?

That’s where the boozy indifference of drunken rebellion comes in. There must come a point where we rise above all our false armor and pretend pretension and declare mightily, insouciantly, hungrily, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”

Screw all this clinging to safety, security, and comfort. Give me risk, adventure, and discomfort. Give me drunkenness and poetry and demons polished into diamonds. Give me monkeyshines and war wounds and jouissance. Give me darkness and expansion and discord over blinding light, clinginess, and concord.

As Heraclitus said, “Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.”

So, blast off the ceiling of your life. Discard your outdated clumsy armor. Kick the door of your comfort zone off its hinges. Get high on living life to the fullest. Get drunk on courage and audacity and insouciance. Win a staring contest with God. Crash through the fortified ramparts of the Apollonian infrastructure with your hair caught on fire and balancing on the tip of a wine bottle like Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master.

No fear. No second guessing. Second guessing is for sobriety. In the drunken haze of the trickster god there is only room for rebellion and expansion. It’s time to break some “precious” vases (in order to piece them back together again stronger and more beautiful than before). It’s time to toss the flimsy caricature of your Mettle into the fire (in order to mold antifragility out of fragility). It’s time to add a beauty mark to that “perfect” façade (in order to make things more beautiful). It’s time to sow a little immoderation so you can reap even greater moderation.

Your persistent moderation (to include moderation) will keep you balanced on a highwire over the human condition. From this height, you’ll gain a bird’s-eye view. Your small picture ego will be eclipsed by your big picture soul. You’ll see the interconnectedness of all things. Your sense of humor will become cutting and sharp, fierce and free, ruthless and insouciant. You’ll become untouchable, unconquerable, unquestionably antifragile. You will be capable of mocking all forms of extremism. Especially slavery, tyranny, and blind faith.

Image source:

By KAIROS

About the Author:

Gary Z McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide-awake view of the modern world.

This article (Moderation in All Things: To Include Moderation) was originally created and published by Self-inflicted Philosophy and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary Z McGee and self-inflictedphilosophy.org. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.