System / Steering

Another system among the systems seeking balance with one other over the improvisations of a day, the day – spinning plates et cetera et cetera; the more one becomes aware of these systems – systems which also, like water – be it in a stream or in a basement –, seek their own level, regardless of our efforts – the more one becomes capable of the tiny, incremental adjustments necessary/possible to steer said self-leveling systems back towards a semblance of balance when they run astray of themselves.

Danger lurks, however, in this pool of heightening systemic awareness: the danger that one (speaking from a decade-plus of experience here) will attempt to exert too much control, lashing sweaty, clammy hands to the ship’s wheel, and transform a balanced and imperfect self-discipline that serves the day and The Work into a perfectionistic self-totalitarianism that serves only itself, feeds on guilt and perceived obligation, and seeks to plug the cracks by which, as Leonard Cohen said, the light gets in.

In just enough control and in the recognition of each system’s own, unconscious movements towards balance, the light; in too much control, the dark. A system, a routine, then, must never serve to perpetuate its own existence for the sake of personal atonement but rather must serve – as much as it can be made to do anything – that to which it seeks to bring balance.