- Tipping the scales? -

It has been said that the fundamental order of nature is such that there must inherently exist balance as an everpresent eventuality. That there is extensive literature debating the issue bears testament to this. And thus it is mere adherence to the way of the world that many a conundrum we find ourselves facing today should adhere to such a principle.
The convalescing process in nature, goes an urban legend, is aided by a perfect balance of yin and yang, while an equivalence must be attained between firm policy and humble consultation to expedite the same process in politics, especially following a humiliation at the hands of the electorate (Chirac, you listening?); besides, symmetric faces are objectively recognised as the most beautiful.

I read, with a queer emotion of slight agony interspersed with a smidgen of amusement, a contemporary's attempt to extol at length the apparent dichotomy that exists between what one wants to do and what one has to do. An 'eternal tussle' was the extent to which the author went in referring to this dilemma.
It was intimated that a conflict must be present between that which one is inclined to undertake at leisure and that which one is compelled to perform. Is that necessarily the case, I wondered? Can what we want to do never be reconciled with what we see as a personal responsiblity to?

My riposte came immediately: while the former affords the psychological comfort modern society seems to crave so badly today, the latter serves as our raison d'être, but the two could hardly be considered mutually exclusive from the off. My friends can attest to my innate predisposition to refer nearly everything back to academia, so I seek no forgiveness in repeating an old habit. In preparing for an examination, it is what you want to do (or, in the interest of clarity, how you want to do) that gives you an idea of what you have to do.

Despite my very biased argument thus far in favour of balance, a timely caveat must be offered: to hastily conclude that a tempered stance should be taken on all accounts would quickly prove a misguided decision.
Odd, you may think, that such an abrupt juxtaposition should occur like a shot in the blue.
But before you condemn my schizophrenic and eqivocal outlook, I beseech you, suspend your judgment and hear me out.

I run the risk of fanning the flames of contention in the vindictive diatribe that is to follow, but it is a task that must be undertaken, for some issues on which there is an implicit agreement must be articulated, if at least in prose.

Often we find ourselves tempering our speech and behaviour with pleasantries, our reservations in an unfamiliar setting making themselves evident in mannerisms that do not come naturally.
Is this necessary? Yes, and it is even advisable should the situation call for diplomacy.

But adaptibility is a virtue, particularly in interacting with difficult sorts. To maintain the naive position that we should abide by modern standards of 'nice' with everyone is a tad quixotic, if not foolish.
When self-interest takes centrestage in your life, do you not automatically abdicate your claim to amiable treatment?
When dealing with one that is completely self-absorbed, is behaviour that is less than civil not perfectly justified?

"What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gauges and dials and registers, and we can read only a few and those perhaps not accurately." - John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent