Balance

“It’s awfully easy to lie when you know that you’re trusted implicitly. So very easy, and so very degrading.” – Celia Johnson, Brief Encounter, 1945

Throughout history in many cultures across the world, in religions and myths, people have been consistently surrounded by the weight of ones soul or actions. In Ancient Egypt, some believed the final trial (and I’m watering this down) was to be presented with a balance that was used to weigh their heart against the feather of Maat. If the deceased’s heart balanced with the feather of Maat, Thoth would record the result and they would be presented to Osiris, who admitted them into the ‘heaven’. However, if their heart was heavier than the feather, it was to be devoured by the Goddess Ammit, essentially ‘sending them to Hell.’ In short, In Greek mythology Zeus hung his scales equally balanced with both sides of life and death, where the fates of Achilles and Memnon were in the balance held by Hermes. The Bible even has Archangel Michael in charge of the ‘last judgement’ in wich again, a soul is weighed. I could go on but you get the idea. For centuries we’ve been fixated on the idea of balance and keeping things in our favour.

There are so many aspects of our lives that are concerned with keeping things together or with some sort of positive reward when we’re finally forced on to those scales, does the bad weigh on us more than the good? What side are our choices adding to? Moreover are the people we surround ourselves with adding to the weight and once it’s on there can we take it off? I suppose that depends on your idea of fate or what’s right and wrong. Being off-balance can look different to everyone, to the people who truly know us it should be obvious, however If you’ve had the scales monitored for a long time it’s all too easy to forge the numbers. Either way, there’s always a possibility to tip the scales, one way or the other and that’s when I believe you can no longer take away from the bad. The scales will forever be off-balance.

Also for centuries humanity has come up with ways to shield ourselves from (or at least help us) from what we would coin overindulging ‘sins’ if you like. People go to church, they pray, some people go to support groups like weight watchers or AA and in many ways this makes us feel like the scales may actually be tipping in our favour. Maybe we can even take some of the weight off and restore some of the balance. When we’re off-balance it’s often easier to keep tipping, like leaning back in a chair at school. Two of the chair legs are in the air whilst the two on the back remain somewhat on the ground, at this point you’re suspended, perhaps even holding on to the edge of a table. As you continue to lean your fingertips move closer and closer towards the edge of the only thing keeping you steady. Then you lose your grip and in that moment your stomach flips upside down as you are sent straight to the ground, hitting it with such force it knocks the wind out of your lungs. Now that you’re on the ground with everyone around you staring, are the people around you going to pull you back up and replace your chair? Are they going to push themselves back and join you on the ground? Or are they going to encourage you to stay down? We would all like to think the immediate answer is option number one but If you think about it, you could probably only say that’s true for a small percentage of the people around you.

Along side balance, we’ve always believed that misery loves company, wich is why we will often find ourselves on the ground with other people, both off-balance and both adding weight that may, sooner or later, be irreversible. It’s never quite as black and white as that, at one point or another everybody is going to be in that chair, weighted down and everybody will be surrounded with people to make a choice. Some are loyal soldiers that’ll pick you up and take most of the weight, whilst this is appealing it’s not always the best choice at that time. Others are like roses that are full of colour and life yet covered in thorns that are just going to hurt and start to wilt, taking you down with them. And then sometimes, all It takes is a small glimpse of what balance looks like and someone to help you up to realise that the soldiers and the roses can co-exist in the same field in equal measure. However, the sad truth is, sometimes the roses need to be cut down because they are just too heavy. Sometimes, until you take inventory and realise what might actually be weighing you down, you’ll never regain balance.