Doing somersaults

The theme of the week just past was good versus evil. At least for me it was. It kept showing up in books, lectures and parties. Of course, life would be simple if there were just two choices: good; evil. Pick one or pick the other. Two choices. Only. But, it isn't like that.

Life is that muddle in between those two poles. At least it feels like that for me this week. Have you ever seen people "pool walking"? They do it at my gym where there's a 25 meter pool that's no more than chest deep. People get in there and they just walk. Back and forth. It's good exercise, I imagine. But it reminds me of weeks like this one. There's good at one end of the pool. And evils sits over there at the other end. Maybe good and evil are too stark. Maybe one end has responsibility and the other has hedonism. Or understanding-everything-clearly is there and I-don't-have-the-remotest-idea-why-she-did-that is here. In any case, I think you get the idea.

Life is that struggle. And it's hard, sometimes to reach the side of the pool. Truth is, there are rarely absolutes in anyone's life. That's a good reminder. There often are no easy answers. In fact, when you feel like you're succumbing to the pressure to be perfect or figure it all out right now, or maybe when you're feeling tempted to just pitch it all and give in to your own demons -- well, maybe that's the time to just hang out in the middle and do somersaults.

In fact, I'll go even farther and say that absolutes are a fiction. Or they're something beyond the reach of humans. Whatever they are, they aren't for me.

This week, somersaults feel about right. My head's above water, so I know I'm okay. I'll just take some time to hang out here and do some waiting, some thinking, and work on my form.