Advancement Through Balance

 Happy New Year, All!  It's the first day of 2023.

To me, it's the perfect time to start setting forth our evolved philosophy in more realistic and consistent terms.  And that's Advancement Through Balance.

Our society in the United States is very divisive because, among other reasons, we don't seek balance.  We seek conflict.  Life does provide situations where conflict is necessary, and we certainly must prepare ourselves for that.  However, it does not mandate that we actively seek out, initiate, or provoke conflict.  People's mindsets do that all by themselves.  

We are in our best shape to interact with the world around us when we are open-minded, objective, well-informed, and educated.  However, we are not in the best shape when we are tooled, groomed, deputized, cuckolded, and manipulated.  That's when we stop being well-informed and start being a conformist.

Unfortunately, it is an innate part of human nature for some of us to be more aggressive than necessary, and for some of us to be more docile and compliant than warranted.  If others have chosen these paths, there is nothing we can do to change their ways that does not involve becoming even worse than they are.  But we most certainly can discipline ourselves so that we don't take either path, and instead find balance between them.

It might sense to say that those who are balanced cannot advance, because they are ambivalent and have no loyalty or drive.  This is incorrect.  You can become aware of multiple perspectives, and still choose one over the others and still be right.  There's nothing in the world wrong with you making your own choices, provided that they are informed, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to manipulate you.  Don't be tooled.

Over the course of this New Year, let's all advance.  We have already built the foundation of knowing how wrong, obnoxious, and sometimes evil others are capable of being.  We can shore up that foundation with the knowledge that we ourselves have our own failings, but that these limitations do not prevent us from improving and becoming stronger - if anything, they are more detailed blueprints from which we can learn to build even better.  From this point on, we erect a high ceiling and a higher tower - constructed of self-respect, assertiveness, and informed practice.  These materials will last a lifetime - by contrast, a structure based on mindless aggression, which supports parapets built on fear, submission, and undeserved fealty, is doomed to collapse.

Let's grab a shovel and break ground today.

MOTHER PROTECT US, FATHER EMBOLDEN US.

ADVANCEMENT THROUGH BALANCE.