balance

I am searching for balance in my life. This is surely one of the most overused clichés of the 21st century, but most things are clichéd because they have a subtext of truth. Just a quick search of the Internet reveals that “balanced life” gets its own “Some News is So Big It Needs Its Own Page” at Huffington Post. WebMD also pays attention to this problem as well, which must mean that Doctors find it worth of concern.

This widespread search for balance is also evidenced by one of my favorite books, the hugely bestselling Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I confess to being an unrepentant groupie fan of Liz Gilbert. I began my last blogging experience, Running While Smoking Coal, with the pledge that I would try to imitate her writing style on the blog. (I am a Political Science professor, and even have my own work in print, and therefore my very own slice of shelf at the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, Political Science Writing has the virtue of sobriety but the big downside of sheer dullness. Most Political Science Professors I know love to read, but would far rather read writing other than that of the Political Science variety.)

Though there are many theories as to why Eat, Pray, Love has been so popular, remaining on the New York Times bestseller list for something like three plus years straight, still remaining there today. There are even new theories coming out now--one of the latest was recently on NPR, with a man still talking about why he likes EPL. There must be something to this phenomenon, and surely this must have something to do with the fact that Liz Gilbert searches for pleasure, devotion, and balance in the book.

So, here I will begin trying to sort through the question of “balance.” I resolved to begin blogging again, after an over two-year absence because (a) it is a fine way to express oneself creatively, (b) it might force me to think through some of these issues, and (c) I made my students blog last semester in class, so shouldn’t I be forced to do the same thing. I will use several things to assist me in this quest:

• the wisdom of the ages—I’ll begin with examining, bit by bit, the classic Chinese text the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong), a text dating at least to the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) and probably to before that.
• my yoga practice, which literally and figuratively stresses the development of balance
• my meditation and running lives
• my academic work, which offers the chance to study balance in the social-political world

More soon, first on Zhongyong.