Balance
June 10th, 2009Janine Antoni, a contemporary artist, on tightrope walking:
“I practiced tightroping for about an hour a day, and after about a week I started to feel like I’m now getting my balance. I started to notice that it wasn’t that I was getting more balanced, but that I was getting more comfortable with being out of balance.”
Damn.
Those words have been running through my head for over a week, and they make so much sense to me right now. Striving for balance in life is exhausting, and obtaining true balance is impossible. Tightrope walkers don’t deceive themselves by trying to walk across the rope as if it were a sidewalk. They see and admit the reality of the rope. They wobble, shake, come close to falling constantly, but somehow maintain balance in the imbalance.
Self-deception around the realities of life lead me to walk as if I’m always on a paved street, but more often than not I am on the rope as opposed to the road.
And the truth is, the rope is ok. The rope is strong, yet it bends and flexes with each step. I have never known life to have solid foundations. What I’ve known is the rope. I think there is a connection between living fully and learning to be balanced in the imbalance.
Wow. How do you DO that? You post these things that say something I really need to hear at exactly the right moment when I’m open and able to assimilate them. Impressive. Thank you.
so true. sometimes hard to even admit the rope, or even see it ourselves. the film photos were refreshing as well. thanks.
Joshua. I have missed you. Thank you so much for these genuine, real, and relevant thoughts that you post on here. I can’t even imagine being able to formulate my feelings and thoughts with such clarity that you posses. Thank you.
I feel just now like hanging on the rope, clutching to it with two or three fingers, but in your perspective it doesn’t sound that bad, because I can see that it is normal, I’ll get onto the rope again and will be able to walk. feeling more comfortable out of balance. thank you too
great thought, Josh.
i was just thinking today about how i need to learn to live in the mess of life. it was so easy to keep my life clean and nice in boxes as a single man, but now being married, i find myself with all of my boxes open with things missing that were once there…it is super exhausting to try to put everything away and tie bows on all the boxes.
i am learning to live with boxes cluttering my life…
So good for a 58 year old dad to learn such profound things from his son. I am on the rope WITH you.
A beautiful documentary on tight rope walking is Man On Wire. Your post reminds me of it.
That makes sense. Somehow that seems really obvious.
Pigma Micron pen in a Moleskine? Are the pens all they are cracked up to be?
also, RE: documentaries on the artistic process, try Glass: A Portrait of Phillip in Twelve Parts. Your post reminded me of it, as well.
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.” - Peter Marshall
Some of the most beautiful, valuable life lessons and experience come out of imbalance, learning and trials.
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