You know when you stumble across a popular turn of phrase and you really think about it

for the first time in a while and discover this is kind of trash.

I just had that moment with the phrase, find your balance, find your footing.

Okay, maybe it applies if you're literally walking on a balance beam.

But other than that, when it comes to practical matters, when it comes to philosophical matters,

matters of the mind, I don't think we ever find our balance. It's more like a constant

negotiation, a constant writing, real-time course correction, when it comes to any of the above,

practical, wide-ranging example from this mind-melting, trying to find a balance between skepticism

and the old woo, the old pro-noia. It's not as simple as just splitting the difference. Of course,

we don't want to discard one or the other. Without skepticism, we wouldn't be able to separate the

shit from shineola. We wouldn't be critical thinkers. Without the woo and wonder, what a tough

slog through the beige meaningless doldrums that would be. But like I said, it's not as simple as

just bisecting the two. Sometimes we need more skepticism or more wonder-dipping. It just depends

on the hand we're dealt in the moment. So I guess my point is that it isn't so much about finding

a balance as it is adapting and correcting in real-time with no expectation of ever settling.

That's what the middle path feels like to me. Quite a bit more zigzaggy than it's usually

portrait, because even knowing what it is requires going off the straight narrow. We need to feel

the polarities, perhaps even meander too far toward one or the other from time to time,

to even know what it means to get back on track, to even find anything that approximates

balance or a middle way. I know this sounds general and perhaps vague, but it feels right. It feels

right in spirit. That's a turn of phrase that I actually really quite like that emerge

out of this podcast that what I just alluded to. Jen said she has this phrase that she likes to

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