"Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one
of excess and the other of deficiency”
-
Aristotle
For many, this statement will hold no significance
whatsoever, or maybe it seems hard to grasp. For me, in so many ways it
defines my being. Aristotle was the reason I studied Art in high school. I
hated math, I admit, but then there was philosophy, Logic, psychology, and
economics as subjects only available for the Art section. I had to choose but I
had an easy decision to make. A couple of years before high school I have just
read in Arabic “Nicomachean Ethics” the book was hard that I had to read it
twice but “oh boy” I fell in love. From there I went to Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche,
Ibn Rushd, and Ibn Al-Haytham and for a brief time, my mom thought she lost me.
While kids were playing or watching TV I spent hours in my room reading for over 6 hours straight. And now as an adult, I know for sure, that books I read have made me the person I am today.
While almost everyone is trying to belong, I am trying to
not belong to anything or anyone. That for a while was strange, even for me.
Then lately I have decided to re-read the books I read in my teenage years to
reflect on myself through that and examine the difference between English and Arabic. The experiment left me in awe. The books I read
and the philosophies I indulged myself in have created my intellect. Many of
the very critical concepts of my life came directly from Aristotle, Socrates, and Nietzsche.
More importantly, my pragmatism comes directly from the golden mean of Aristotle.
For so many years I have struggled to stay in the middle. It was hard living in
the world we are living in and stay grounded in the middle of anything.
Everything today asks us to take a side, to have a definitive opinion. Yet it
never made sense to me. I always loved the freedom of experimenting with the
extremes but NEVER got tempted to stay by an end. My forever place was and will
be" just right in the middle."
Aristotle argued that the golden mean is what grants us Eudaimonia
(Happiness). What is the golden mean? It is finding the middle spot of every extreme; it is the perfect Isorropia (Balance). let's have examples to understand the Aristotelian balance: Balance is courage, while the
extremes are recklessness and cowardice. Balance is Kindness, while the
extremes are selfishness and ultraism. Balance is Love, while the extremes are hatred
and indifference. Balance is Generosity, while the extremes are miserliness and
dissipation.
Balance in our modern life goes beyond the characteristics necessary
for personal virtue. Balance is an everyday choice relating to economy, politics, environment, health …etc. Balance is
to know not to take a side and be free to fly and explore, allowing yourself to
learn without limitation. It is giving yourself permission to experience everything
in life as it is without indulgence. While being aware of the long term cause
and effect, which simply allow us to understand where we stand in the matrix of
balance and adjust accordingly.
Mastering
the golden mean allows us to experience situations even emotional ones pragmatically, as
explained by Aristotle with this example: “It is easy to get angry, but to know
when to be angry, why you are angry, whom you are angry at, and what amount of angry
is the right amount for the situation is the brilliance.” Simply Aristotle
tried to give us a recipe for wellbeing and happiness that is very easy to follow
if we only understood the concept of balance. Another important concept
presented by Aristotle was Eudaimonia, and he explained happiness as the way to
live life not the mean of living life. The way to live a happy life is to lead
a life of balance. To aspire to balance means to constantly trying to improve
yourself, your life and the life of those around you. To embrace balance, however, is completely a different story; to embrace means to accept the existence
of both extremes in life; good and bad and to know that one doesn’t exist
without the other. Hold on with me a little bit more, we wouldn't be able to
define courage if cowardice didn’t exist, nor we would be able to know what cowardice is if we didn’t know recklessness. The same applies to other concepts; we wouldn’t
know happiness if we never experienced joy, and joy would be a meaningless
concept if we never experienced sadness. The moment we recognize, practice and embrace balance, we have reached the golden mean.
Let’s imagine something,
you are going for a hike (or anything else you enjoy) with your partner or
friends. You have two choices; one is to set a definitive time to reach the
peak and that’s the ultimate goal of the whole hike. No longer stops around the way because
the goal is to conquer the mountain. The second choice is to reach the peak while enjoying nature, having stops with your mate
around the trail and explore what the surroundings have to offer. Hike, talk
and enjoy everything around while being aware of the time and the duration needed
to reach the peak reasonably. Which choice would you like to take? The first choice
seems harder and competitive. The second choice seems more relaxed and fun. The
truth is, the first choice is easier. You plan ahead and cut down the
distractions but along the way you cut down the possibilities (that’s one
extreme, success) or you end up by having some obstacles and never reach the
peak nor enjoy the hike (that’s the other extreme, failure), but no matter the result
is, the hike was a task. While the second choice is a bit harder to plan and
requires a lot of awareness along the way it embraces the possibility of both
success and failure because it understands the purpose of the hike is not only to reach
the peak, rather enjoy the way to the peak with whoever is there with you, it is about the journey.
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