teeter and totter at the same time

the balance of imbalance   

it is vital to be one’s own self:
to assert,
to follow one’s own intuitive leaps,
to take a risk,
to release upon the world
ideas that feel right to you, yourself,
ideas and feelings that feel right to be
despite how original and seemingly unvalidated
your enthusiasm might be,

yet--hold that thought--
have it work with a seemingly opposite impulse,

it is also vital to feel one’s self as connected to others:
to follow,
to respond,
to get that the other is also “us,”
to get that we need, at times,
to subsume a first impulse within a larger drive
toward order and rightness,

life is the art, not just of balance,
but of imbalance,
of jumping lightly yet surely on the “teeter”
and then jumping lightly yet surely on the “totter,”
of getting that, at best,
we know and live
both the impulse within our own assertiveness
and the impulse within our response to others,

each impulse is a hypothesis
that accounts for some data before us,
we need to alter each hypothesis
to account for the world that really is,
and that needs our individuality as a part
that helps make up a reality
that can be as collective
as we can expand ourselves to realize.

by Henry H. Walker
October 21, ’12