Extremism

I consider myself a realist, and I consider balance to be of utmost importance to maintaining a realistic approach to things. To pessimists I may sound like an optimist and to optimists I may sound like a pessimist, because I aim to temper claims with a realistic perspective and avoid extremist notions. Likewise, democrats often think I'm conservative, and republicans think I'm liberal, because THEIR beliefs are extreme, they often attribute a corresponding extreme to me, which is just not the case.

Balance is therefore very important in looking at things realistically and rationally. This is why people who are mentally ill are often called unstable or unbalanced. Their perceptions are skewed to some extreme, which prevents them from seeing things as they truly are. People like to view things as all good or all evil, but in the end they are just people, and everyone is a mix of both. Although the divine forces of the universe may achieve perfect blacks and whites, we are mortals prone to greys. Good people can mess up every now and then and make bad choices, but that does not make them wholly bad. Similarly bad people might do something good, but that does not make them good, especially if that good deed is meant to control someone. This is why I like the concept of the yin yang. There's a little bit of good in all evil and a little bit of evil in all good.

To me, the straight and narrow is less like a path and more like a tightrope walker holding a beam with a bucket on each end of the pole. Meanwhile the world dumps things into your buckets everyday, and you choose what to take out and leave in the buckets. It doesn't really matter which side gets too heavy, because either side will throw you off balance and topple you into the abyss. Therefore it is obsession and extremism, which can so easily spill you into the darkness. The moment that one side gets too heavy you start to lean in that direction, more and more until balance is overwhelmed and you fall.
As I've said before, you can not have sex and still be obsessed with it, by worrying about stopping people from having sex. At that point your mind is so focused on it, and you begin to see it everywhere. Likewise, you can not eat and your every thought be on food, constantly obsessing about every calorie, every pound, until it consumes your thoughts.

The natural next step of being obsessed with something is to be so consumed and filled with it yourself that it begins to spill out onto others. The obsessor then applies pressure for those around them to conform to their obsession as well. This is often seen in narcissism, where the person's heightened sense of importance gets pushed on those around them to comply with their perception, and any resistance to this is met with condemnation or narcissistic rage until the subject conforms. If someone is obsessed with a person, it can consume them and the outward push can become stalking or worse in an effort to control that person, but never mistake that need to control as love. Obsession is not love.

Extremism/Obsession of any kind can turn a normal healthy appetite or interest into a destructive cycle.  As I've said before, addictive (obsessive) personalities are far more destructive than the substances they choose to abuse. There was a story my biology teacher once told us of a woman obsessed with drinking water to the point that she killed herself by drinking too much and her cells began to burst. Too much of anything is a bad thing, and inversely too little can be bad too.

Extremism turns kind people into doormats, because they are afraid to say no. Extremism turns good workers into workaholics that burn out. Extremism turns a fit person into a bulimic. At its very core extremism/obsession turns positives into negatives.

The problem with extremism, is that in an attempt to counter the previous extreme, some people may go to the opposite extreme, which is referred to as the pendulum effect. However a pendulum swung to the other extreme, will inevitably swing back the other way and so on, because the balance is in the middle and when it finally settles in the middle that is where true stability can be found. For example, an alcoholic may quit cold turkey, then fall off the wagon, then binge drink, etc. It's not until the person can be able to take a drink and stop themselves, be in the room with it and not be obsessing over drinking or not drinking, that they truly won't be an alcoholic anymore. When that drink no longer becomes a part of their core identity, they are cured.

Often these obsessions are out of a shaky persona clinging to something to define them, make them happy, to make them lovable to someone, to justify them, or some other part of their identity which they value greatly to the point that peripheral things lose focus. They say "this is all I need", and in that they neglect many areas that need their attention. In that moment, they throw everything into one bucket, and it becomes only a matter of time as balance is lost, and a destructive cycle begins.

So if someone counters something said, it doesn't always mean that they believe the opposite extreme. If you assume that, you might want to examine your own views for extremist thought. Sometimes people are just giving a reality check, and trying to lighten a bucket that looks like it might be getting too heavy.

Here's to everyone walking the line. May your burdens be light. May your balance never falter. And may you always find your footing in truth.