The Balancing Act

Every good thing is about balance. 

Our bodies are a triumph of balance, which we refer to as homeostasis.  The earth is life giving only if it is in a state of balance: rotate it off its course from the sun just a wee bit and we're all in for a very long winter or summer.  And even a good movie comes down to balance - we want consciously or subconsciously for the story to maintain just the right level of so many different things depending on the genre.  In the end, we walk away happy from an experience based on balance.

Take a game of football as another example.  In a bad game of football, one team trounces the other and we're all tremendously bored by the second quarter.  A good game, on the other hand, is a game in which both teams are nearly equal in their abilities and output, and the result is a game that comes down to the final seconds with a miraculous finish that pleases both the fans and the advertisers.  Why was it such a good game?  Balance.  And take almost anything you like and you'll find that it's level of pleasure can be derived from a good level of balance. 

Yes, intense action and near death escapes are fun in the game Halo, and everyone likes barely surviving through your own thumb-twitching skillz.  However, keep that pacing up non-stop for an hour and you'll find yourself overloaded from the chaos.  Throw it out there in small bursts with more placid interludes in between and you'll be a happy gamer.  Balance.

Ever played a game of Super Street Fighter IV?  Many of the fighters in that game are referred to as "Upper Tier" while some are referred to as "Lower Tier."  Try fighting a good player using an "Upper Tier" character while you use a "Lower Tier" character.  The result is usually frustration because the "Lower Tier" fighter lacks the resources needed to fairly defeat the opponent.  Switch it up so that both players are using "Mid Tier" characters and you've got something.  Balance.

Now wouldn't it be nice if every character in that game were perfectly balanced?  Sagat would begin to fear my Hakan, I"ll tell you that (SSFIV people will get that).  Or what if every NBA game came down to the final minutes because of true balance and gameplay that encouraged it?  What if every book, story, or movie you experienced was perfectly balanced in such a way that you left it feeling that everything had been expertly crafted?  And, finally, what if the government could strike the perfect balance between services and reservation, between taxation and the free market, between the left and the right?  Well, that would be balance, and that would be good.

It all comes down to balance.  Balancing the good and the bad, the fast and the slow, the kinetic and the potential... when you can balance these opposites in any given facet of your life, you achieve the best of what can be.