the struggle with challenge

February 19, 2024

• balance

  Sometimes we get there through extremes. Where's there? That middle ground? That equilibrium? That teeter totter over the fulcrum?I want to oscillate on the cusp of either/or, and/but. This and that.
  
  Do extremes balance (cancel) each other out? There's no way. Evil does not cancel out good, nor bring it back to center. As if we knew what “it” was. Maybe it just is. Whatever you want it to be. Whatever your center is.

• base

  We might very much get “there” back to center (balance) and centering of one’s self through extreme opposites. For instance, if someone is extremely elated, the antidote of extreme sadness (or a horse tranquilizer), could bring them back to base.

• deprivation tank

  Maybe that's what I actually want when I think about balance, is having a base (or two) — a fulcrum to call home when things feel too overwhelming. Too stimulating. To have this deprivation tank of sorts to take the extreme away. Whatever it is to feel at peace. Again.
  
  Who’s to say peace, tranquility, serenity are the center? That actually could be one’s extreme polar opposite to what one can be experiencing on their own life’s seesaw. And if that’s one extreme for them, what would be their center? Controlled chaos, maybe. That seems pretty spot on. And maybe that’s my way of seeing the center of the two extremes of my life.

• center "peace"

  I feel pretty balanced, level even. Centered when I have a sense of control of the chaos that is life. And I know I’m not in control. Perhaps that's why I’m even more at peace with this centerpiece of C2 = Controlled Chaos because it's actually out of my control. Completely.

• seesaw

  I can find peace, when I'm grounded and the seesaw seat is touching the ground. I’m there waiting for the other end to be pushed down by a parent or a bigger kid jumping on it to throw me up again, to high chaos.
  
  Or until my own two feet push off the dusty, carelessly kicked around mulch to fling me into the opposite extreme: flight/height.

• higher pen

  Sometimes, or rather always, I let my pen and hand grasping it take control by way of my HP. And maybe that's it. My penmanship is the fulcrum. It’s that middle ground. It’s the piece creating peace between two different words.
  
  Two different vibes, ways of being. They're both my states of being. And the feelings on that entire spectrum of air and earth, up and down are me. Grounded and in the clouds.

• freaky

  It's needed to have extremes to feel the freak show that is extreme. The life that comes with extremity. To bring you back down or throw you up depending on where you are — back to normalcy.And here we are now. Here and now. With that word, normal. So basic it’s not normal. So normally, weird.

• redundant

  Today is my first day back into the grind of getting back into the grind, if that makes sense. Feels like it doesn’t.

• calor

  It's a beautiful sunny day. For warming wet clothes and chaotic hearts.

• the struggle with challenge

  I want to go for a run today. I need to. To really get prepared for the half. I don't want to struggle with it. At the same time I know it will be a challenge.
  
  Both are tough. But both are different things. The latter is less of a struggle than the former, when you’re prepared. Trained. Ready to challenge yourself to enter into the "no pain no gain" zone, which is a struggle and challenge in itself.