Doing It Positively

There is an ancient proverb that in the middle there is virtue. That is an ethical first principle of special note. Now we humans often get into trouble by going to extremes. Many of us with addictive personalities want to live temperate lives but lack the skill, temperament or will to achieve this. Our secondary, negative plan is to keep going from extreme to extreme not quite so thoroughly or so long. We intentionally alternate between extremes to achieve a rough, crude, approximate center around which to build and organize our lives. A much harder to achieve, but more sensible way to be moderate is to oscillate back and forth between alternatives without excess or meagerness, without violent, wasteful, melodramatic gestures. Such self-controlling people own their own destinies and will conquer the world.