“Xerxes dispatches his monsters from half the world away. They’re clumsy beasts, and the piled Persian dead are slippery.” – 300
That may be a slippery slope. But it’s a tasty slippery slope.
When I was about 19, I was browsing around a new bookstore that had just opened in the college town where I went to school. The bookstore had an inventory of about sixteen books, and lasted just about that sixteen weeks before it went out of business. They did, however, have one book out of the sixteen that caught my eye. I picked it up – The Notebooks of Lazarus Long by Robert Heinlein. It was beautifully illustrated. I flipped randomly through it, and as I recall one of the first quotations I found was:
“Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.”
When I was in college, I used toothpaste for spackle because I didn’t know spackle existed – not a square foot of wall in my house wasn’t covered in paneling. Live and learn, though my dorm room smelled minty-fresh when I checked out.
I bought the book.
Several of the quotes from that book have been mentioned before in previous posts by your ‘umble ‘ost, especially:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
The age of 19 is a powerful time to introduce ideas to a mind – new ones tend to burn in deeply, especially those that resonate with your belief system.
But, “Moderation is for monks”? What do I do with that? Is that a formula for hedonism, a nerdy version of YOLO or The Lie of Living Your Best Life (now including cookies)? Taken entirely out of context, it could be interpreted to mean just that. Party on!
I can’t even remotely support that interpretation, however. When taken into proper context, specifically with the second quote, it means nothing of the sort. You can’t be a human that’s capable of doing half of those things on the list if you’re not a person of substance, a person who has devoted their life to learning and service, or John Wick.
John Wick kills about 77 people in the first movie because he’s sad they killed his dog, which is more than I’ve killed all year. I guess that’s just how Keanu grieves.
Moderation may be for monks, but Heinlein wasn’t telling us to party. He was telling us that we only get one shot at life, so we have to live it to the fullest. He’s telling us that there’s danger in compromise. Here’s another quote that gets us closer, from Karate Kid:
Daniel-san, must talk. Walk on road, hmm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, get squish just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do “yes”, or karate do “no”. You karate do “guess so”, just like grape. Understand?
Thankfully Mr. Miyagi wasn’t from Sweden – then he’d only know Ikea®-do.
There’s a danger to compromise. The path to freedom as practiced by the Founding Fathers® isn’t a path of tolerance to deviation. The path to freedom is rigorous. It requires honest and probing self-analysis. Once the self-analysis is done, the solution immediately presents itself. For a real solution, the truth is required – lies are comforting, but never lead to solutions.
Taking an inventory of where your reality is versus where your standards are is important. We all fall short of our standards from time to time, but if you do it long enough, falling short becomes your new standard. The only solution, and I mean only solution is to avoid moderation. If you’ve failed, the “moderate” behavior that got you there isn’t the “moderate” behavior that will get you out of the situation.
Just as the path to freedom doesn’t include tolerance for tyranny, the path to good health doesn’t include tolerance for Snickers® bars every fifteen minutes. On the flip side, going for a half-hour without downing the bag of Ruffles® on the table doesn’t solve your health problems – it’s only the very smallest of steps.
There are no shortcuts.
Okay, tubing down that waterfall might be a short cut. Not a positive one, mind you . . .
For me, avoiding moderation is key – your mileage may vary. But from what I’ve seen, most people who quit smoking, quit smoking. They don’t slow down – they stop. It’s a radical choice. I’ll share my problem a problem that this girl I knew (she’s from Canada, you wouldn’t know her) had. I started out with the keto diet (several years ago) and started getting great success. I was in a time and place where it was possible to follow the diet exactly. After a while, I started reading that people took a day off. So I took a day off.
A day became a day and the previous evening. Which became Friday evening to Saturday evening. Which became Friday until Monday morning. Yes, I’m admitting that I allowed the slippery slope in that girl from Canada allowed the slippery slope in.
Thankfully we’re all out of Ruffles® and chewing gum tonight.
For me, moderation didn’t work on that diet – moderation led to failure, and that’s what Heinlein was talking about. If you have a goal, don’t pursue it half-heartedly – pursue it with everything you have. Moderation really is for monks.
Resistance is futile.
http://scalar.usc.edu/works/uiuc-food-networks/media/MichaelMoss_SaltSugarFat2013_2.1.pdf
The Cliff Notes version:
http://www.wphna.org/htdocs/downloadsmar2013/journal/13-02-24%20NYT%20Michael%20Moss.pdf
My former boss and mentor was known to say “All things in moderation…including moderation.”
I heartily agree.
“Moderately honest” isn’t the way I want to describe my credit union’s handling of my accounts. Moderately efficient, fine. But not moderately accurate.
Moderation just isn’t what your wife expects, when the topic is “faithfulness” (and not what she deserves).
Don’t be too harsh on those who held the job title “monk”. They did manage to preserve ancient wisdom through the plagues and warfare of the Middle Ages, after all. (It’s too bad they let that library burn down, though, in The Name of the Rose; the part about the girl was sad, but the part about the library was tragic.)
I like that – moderately honest. Excellent.
The trouble with moderation is you finally reach the point where you have to catch up. That can lead to severe headaches, poor work performance, a strain on relationships, and the longing for someone to post your bail.
I’m hoping that my wife will accept the moderately honest explanation.
So I’m going along nodding my head and then I think…
Chastity. Poverty. Isolation… how does “monk” become the go-to exemplar for moderation? Alliteration? Reference to Proverbs (?) A tradition of good booze-crafting?
Well, there was the bland food, and the undecorated clothes, and the requirement that they only have basic cable.
Not kidding here, but I honestly do not know what “ruffles” are. I will assume that this is some sort of junk food, probably like potato chips. My lifetime weakness has been sugar, chocolate, specifically peanut M&Ms. Salty chips are my wife’s and my sons’ death trap, but were never mine (thank goodness).
At various times in my life I have picked my sorry arse up off the muddy path where I have dropped and climbed back on the wagon after falling victim to any number of popular intoxicants and stimulants, including pot, cocaine, single malts, vicodin, oxy, and even, heaven forfend, Robitussin CF. Each time I reminded myself of my ultimate commitment to myself, which I have coined (patent pending) the Personal Depth Trail (PDT).
What does one DO on the Personal Depth Trail? Read. Write. Remember. Consult the classics. Assess. Count blessings. Count them again. Count them a third time, this time in metric. I’ve learned a few things waaaaay too late in life, but one of them is indeed, All Things In Moderation.
Remember Julia Child, that ridiculous Amazon woman with the infinitely imitatable falsetto who Dan Aykroyd got so much mileage out of on SNL back in the day? She was famous for her French cooking, loaded with heavy cream and duck fat, but she always cautioned, “All the best, in moderation”. Never had her scary visage pinned up to my dorm room wall, but today I appreciate her caution like nothing that Farrah Fawcett ever uttered in her prime.
It ain’t sexy, and its not going to get hashtagged anytime soon. But if ‘moderation’ ever makes a comeback, I want it to be known that I have always been a fan. Before it went viral.
Not kidding here, but I honestly do not know what “ruffles” are. I will assume that this is some sort of junk food, probably like potato chips. My lifetime weakness has been sugar, chocolate, specifically peanut M&Ms. Salty chips are my wife’s and my sons’ death trap, but were never mine (thank goodness).
At various times in my life I have picked my sorry arse up off the muddy path where I have dropped and climbed back on the wagon after falling victim to any number of popular intoxicants and stimulants, including pot, cocaine, single malts, vicodin, oxy, and even, heaven forfend, Robitussin CF. Each time I reminded myself of my ultimate commitment to myself, which I have coined (patent pending) the Personal Depth Trail (PDT).
What does one DO on the Personal Depth Trail? Read. Write. Remember. Consult the classics. Assess. Count blessings. Count them again. Count them a third time, this time in metric. I’ve learned a few things waaaaay too late in life, but one of them is indeed, All Things In Moderation.
Remember Julia Child, that ridiculous Amazon woman with the infinitely imitatable falsetto who Dan Aykroyd got so much mileage out of on SNL back in the day? She was famous for her French cooking, loaded with heavy cream and duck fat, but she always cautioned, “All the best, in moderation”. Never had her scary visage pinned up to my dorm room wall, but today I appreciate her caution like nothing that Farrah Fawcett ever uttered in her prime.
It ain’t sexy, and its not going to get hashtagged anytime soon. But if ‘moderation’ ever makes a comeback, I want it to be known that I have always been a fan. Before it went viral.
No country in history has ever hated freedom as much as the USA does.
You know that all hope is lost when you talk to 5 Americans in one day and one says that the Bill of Rights should be repealed, another says blacksmithing should be illegal, one swears wearing fur should be a crime, one says private charities should be a outlawed, and another says bump stocks must be banned.
Disgusting.