The Middle Is the Way
If Moderation Is The Key to a Good Life, Why Are We Always Chasing Extremes?
Over 2400 years ago, a weary ascetic took his seat under a Banyan tree and came to a realization that fundamentally changes our understanding of the world.
So beautifully powerful it induced him to tears.
So profoundly obvious that being struck with this revelation felt like awakening from a lifelong dream. One which everyone else was still stuck in. He recalled those around sleepwalking through life, numbing themselves with intoxicants, repeating cycles of misery whose causes had long been forgotten, trapped in nightmares of their own making.
All the while, the answer was right there. The key to a life well-lived lay not in the fanatical self-denial of the wildmen and yogis with whom he had first studied, nor in the pleasure-loving aristocrats from whom he descended.
No. The answer that would lead to Gautama becoming known forever after as the Buddha, aka “The Awakened One”, lay in the middle path of skillfully navigating between extremes.
Half a century after the Buddha’s death, Aristotle would have a similar epiphany. Despite what many of his fellow Greeks believed, being the best at anything, whether it be archery or greatness, lay in the middle. Who cares how far you can shoot your arrow if it’s too far left or right of your target?
The same goes for virtues. We know the person who’s afraid of everything is a coward, but the people who are afraid of nothing aren’t courageous, they’re reckless. True courage is the ability to know when to be bold and when to be cautious.
True wisdom lies between impulse-driven foolishness and ivory-tower abstraction.
True generosity is found between being a tightwad and everyone’s walking ATM.
And so on.
This became known as the Aristotelian Mean. While you can find exceptions and make academic arguments to the contrary, (what did we just say about ivory-tower abstraction?) when in doubt, moderation is the way to go.
Over two millennia later, moderation has become a cliche. The question isn’t, “how do we live a good life” so much as it is, “Why don’t we?”
As old as Buddha and Aristotle are, our conditioning to react to extremes is even older. The ability to notice dangerous extremes like sharp teeth or burning forests in our environment guaranteed our survival. We can organize in large groups because we’re willing to believe in extreme beings. Be they gods, heroes, or presidents. Laughter is our brain’s momentary inability to deal with an extreme thought.
Most of our big decisions come from the uneasiness of not-doing something vs an extended debate over the merits and disadvantages of all the available actions.
Those who would control us, start by exploiting our attraction to extremes.
So despite the middle path being an obvious one, little of society is structured to guide us down it. Instead of using the internet—the largest repository of easily-accessible information and knowledge in history—to temper our emotions and bring us to common understanding, it has become a dopamine-dispensing radicalizer. Marketing convinces us that mere objects deserve to be invested with our very identities. The news is mostly angry people making tragic mistakes.
Enough exposure to all these extremes, and we become desensitized to the middle. The right path, i.e. the kind-yet-convicted path, the gentle-yet-assertive path is so much less stimulating than the ones which end in conflict and violence. The successful people are the ones who work 80 hour weeks despite being so rich they don’t have to work at all. They have <10% bodyfat, 160+ IQs, and larger-than-life personalities.
It’s easy to emerge from such surroundings believing that we should follow suit.
But then we remember that so many people who’d rather not be famous have as much choice over their celebrity as we do over ours. Many of the rich are no less miserable than the poor. And many who amass enormous wealth and status lose them just as easily. It would seem that the extreme path often leads to extreme regrets if not extreme ends.
After 2400 years, the world is as much a nightmare or dream as it ever was. While we can’t change that, awakening to one truth always helps:
The middle is still the superior way.
Yes!
“Who cares how far you can shoot your arrow if it’s too far left or right of your target?”
“Those who would control us, start by exploiting our attraction to extremes.”
Great essay!