{"id":1575,"date":"2012-02-28T15:50:04","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T19:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hnetalk.com\/?p=1575"},"modified":"2012-02-28T15:50:04","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T19:50:04","slug":"moderation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/2012\/02\/28\/moderation\/","title":{"rendered":"Moderation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c<em>All things in moderation<\/em>\u201d, said the ancient Greeks.\u00a0 \u201c<em>The middle way<\/em>\u201d, said the Buddha. \u201c<em>Let your moderation be known to all men<\/em>\u201d, it is written in the Bible. Why did the wise ones of the past value restraint so much? Does it seem like their wisdom lacks passion? Where is the intensity of experience, the feverish desire for change, the \u201c<em>Go for it<\/em>!\u201d or \u201c<em>Just do it<\/em>!\u201d mentality that our modern society values so much?<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->When I was younger I could party and drink with the best (or worst) of them. I often stayed up all night. I worked for a while as a cab driver in New York City, on the 4:00 p.m. &#8211; 4:00 a.m. shift. I saw lots of sunrises. Now I am older, calmer, less given to outbursts either of temper or of excessive joy and celebration. And I am happier for it.<\/p>\n<p>How do you live your life?\u00a0 Do you find yourself swinging from one emotional extreme to the other? You don\u2019t have to be clinically manic-depressive to feel sometimes like the roller-coaster of life is about to throw you off the tracks.\u00a0 What are some ways to move toward a more balanced, less wild pendulum-swinging rhythm of living?<\/p>\n<p>Meditation is one way to stay centered. Another way is to make sure that you to keep a good work-life balance. Another good habit is to consume foods and alcohol in moderation. \u00a0Moderation leads to more moderation. Excess leads to more excess.\u00a0 In <em>The Marriage of Heaven and Hell<\/em>, the English poet and artist William Blake wrote that \u201c<em>The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.<\/em>\u201d This quote is often misconstrued as promoting overindulgence.\u00a0 Blake explained that the union of opposites, what the Eastern mystics call <em>yin<\/em> and <em>yang<\/em>, is what creates the world, and that from these opposites come the concepts of good and evil. \u201c<em>Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Okay, maybe that\u2019s too heavy for a blog entry, but you get the idea. Enjoy your moderation!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAll things in moderation\u201d, said the ancient Greeks.\u00a0 \u201cThe middle way\u201d, said the Buddha. \u201cLet your moderation be known to all men\u201d, it is written in the Bible. Why did the wise ones of the past value restraint so much? Does it seem like their wisdom lacks passion? Where is the intensity of experience, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-body-and-spirit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6ZZxW-pp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}