Left. Right. Conservative. Liberal. Democratic. Republic. Religious. Atheist. Environmentalist. Feminist.
It seems we are living in a world of extreme contrasts. Is it easier to pigeon hole people into categories? Is it easier to pigeon-hole ourselves into categories to grasp our own identities? To know where we stand on issues? To know where others stand and if we can agree with them? To know that things are black and white?
The problem with this view is that by identifying with these extreme categories, we become more and more unwilling to compromise. We begin to forget that things are usually gray and that the only way we can all be happy is if we continually work to find common ground.
How do we find happiness in a world of extremes? This is a question philosophers have been tossing around for centuries. Aristotle. Buddha. Confucius. They each realized that extremism destroys happiness, health, and harmony. They realized that the common ground we each share is our shared main purpose: to live a good life in the current moment.
So, let's talk about what these guys discovered in all their thinking and meditating.
Let's start with Aristotle and his Golden Mean. The Golden Mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. For example, drive, a virtue, if taken to excess would manifest as greed and if deficient as lazyness.
Aristotle believed that between painful excess and painful deficiency lies ethical virtue, positive character traits, and the Golden Mean. For example, courage is the mean between fear and overconfidence. Too much fear and too little confidence lead to cowardice and too little fear and too much confidence can lead to recklessness.
Aristotle believed that although we should all strive to live in moderation, the fine-tuning of proportions is up to each individual. As we all have different tastes, preferences, and capacities, no two people will arrive at the exact same Golden Mean. For example, if we talk about temperance as a virtue we're talking about exercising moderation in what we consume. How much alcohol should you drink? Aristotle would call alcoholism and abstemiousness the extreme vices. What would be the Golden Mean between these two? For some, it would be to drink nothing in the week and to have a few drinks on the weekend, for others it could be to have a drink a night. Both of these would be avoiding the extremes.
In Aristotle's view, people find the good life by finding balance between extremes. He understood that human nature has the potential for both good and evil and we are designed to acquire habits. He defined good habits as virtues and bad habits as vices and believed that virtues lead to happiness and vices lead to unhappiness. Instead of viewing good and evil as opposing forces, Aristotle suggested that goodness results from practicing virtues which fall between two vicious extremes.
What are your vices? Does it help to think about what could be in excess and what could be in deficit? Are there any new habits you'd like to nurture so you can live in balance between extremes?
Stay tuned. Next week, we'll talk about Buddha and his Middle Way.
