Thank you to the kind person who allowed me to use this photo on my website. Also thank you for giving me some inspiration in the first place.

I was sent this photo with the message “an invitation for mental images and philosophizing”. These are the kind of people I hang out with :-). Her mental image was that of dancer and I concur, the lone seed sticking up reminds me of a ballet dancer. Slim, graceful, in precarious balance but still somehow strong and upright. But as I tend to transform mental images into more abstract concepts I landed on balance. We use this word in common language. In a literal and metaphorical sense we are balancing things, we are keeping or having lost our balance, we are “in” or “out” of balance, things are a balancing act and we balance our accounts.

But what does balance mean. Is it something we need to achieve, something to work for or something that is inherent in ourselves? Are we unstable and need to balance ourselves or do we get pushed and pulled by outside forces we need to strain against to keep balance. Should we even keep balance or should we let ourselves drift and wander? I feel there is ample supply in tools to find balance in life with self-help books, therapists, coaches, seminars, retreats, podcasts and practical exercises. Have we somehow lost balance? Is balance such a valuable thing to have in the first place?

Or maybe it is better to go all in with the things we want, like, love, value, desire or strive for? Or do we become unbalanced, tilted, slanted and eventually loose balance and fall? It seems maybe that we value and desire the wrong things and then we try to balance it out. Like someone who works 60 hours a week and then tries to regain his balance with a premium yoga retreat every other month. Maybe balance is found in pursuing the right values and goals?

Going back to the image, the seed on top is in balance but it is a precarious balance. At some point it will fail and it has to fail to go forward with life. To create a new dandelion. A new balance.