Polarity Management: A Tool for Managing Complex Problems

30 years ago or os my brother Ron (Dr. Ron Newman, a PhD psychologist) introduced me to the concept of polarity management. For Ron, thinking about polarities and finding balance has been a lifelong habit of his, almost an involuntary obsession. Once you become aware of the variety of ways polarities emerge, you can't help but notice them yourselves. 

Examples abound. Security vs. freedom, efficiency vs. creativity, competition vs. cooperation. Polarity management is a tool to help us manage or resolve complex issues. The key idea is to understand that opposites are not necessarily enemies.

The goal is not to find a solution that eliminates one of the opposites, but rather to find a way to manage the tension between them in a manner that is productive and sustainable. 

Here's another example that happened with an acquaintance of mine. After a very busy time in his life he decided to go live on a beach in Florida for a year. After four months he was so bored he found a job that was fulfilling for 18 months but not something he wanted to do for the rest of his life. During this period he recognized his calling and followed that for the rest of his life.

Too much activity left him exhausted and he opted for inactivity. This resulted in a sense of meaninglessness, which propelled him to think more deeply about why he was here on earth. Ultimately he found fulfillment in a career that involved helping others.

My brother publishes a column about seeking balance that we hope will become a book or series of books. Topics he's written about include seeking balance with anger, depression, anxiety, happiness, grief, aspects of parenting and more. As a Christian counsellor he has spent more than two decades training church leaders in South America and elsewhere on this principle of finding balance.

Aristotle's Golden Mean is a similar concept in philosophy. Moral virtue lies between the two extremes of excess and deficiency. For example, finding the balance between recklessness and boldness is the path to virtue.

Giving is an example of this challenge. Stinginess is one end of the spectrum, extravagant giving to the neglect of paying your bills and neglecting your children is at the other end of the scale. How do we find the Golden Mean? For each of us this can be a perplexing problem in a world where there is so much need.

What about fun? Is "fun" the purpose of life? Or is laughter something that we enjoy because it lightens our load as we pursue our responsibilities? You can read my thoughts on that topic here: Eudaemonia vs. Hakuna Matata: Two Views on the Pursuit of Happiness

Much more can be said but I have to catch a plane. You can read a few of my brother's articles here... and encourage him to continue his writings. He's thought deeply on this topic for a very long time and has a bundle of useful insights.

Have a great weekend.

Aristotle, Courage and the Golden Mean

I saw this quote and it rang so true that I wanted to write about it.

Courage is the golden mean as a virtue, between too much fear which produces cowardice and too little fear which produces recklessness.

When I Googled it to see where this sentence came from, I found that I had already written about it two years ago, on Medium.

This experience brought to mind a friend who had read every Louis L'Amour Western. That would be 100, for those who might be counting. (He also wrote 250 short stories, so the guy was prolific.) What she said was that in his last books he sometimes mixed up his characters. That is, someone in book 87 might accidentally make a cameo appearance in book 98. She was certain that L'Amour's little mix-ups were unintentional. 

I have occasionally found articles or blog posts I wrote that I forgot about entirely. Occasionlly I have opened a file that I thought was really well written, but wasn't sure if I wrote it or it was copied from somewhere else. 

I'm not yet 70, so I have miles to go before I sleep, and will likely experience this more than a few times as the shadows creep in a little further down the road.

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Here's the original story on Medium. It's titled Courage: The Golden Mean Between Cowardice and Recklessness.

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The reason this Aristotle quote was on my mind was because I was thinking about our National Poet Laureate Billy Collins, who wrote a poem titled Aristotle. It happens to be one of my favorites and appears near the end of his book titled Sailing Alone Around the Room. It's a fabulous bit of writing that many writers would sacrifice an arm to be able to achieve. (You can still be a writer with one hand, right?) It might actually be enlightening to discover what it really feels like to experience the sound of one hand clapping. (Am I pushing that too far?) 

Collins was on my mind because very recently an acquaintance of mine, a poetry prof at UWS, got a phone call from Mr. Collins. The National Poet Laureate had called to notify him that his book of poems, Roze & Blud, was under consideration for a Pulitzer.  Congrats, Jayson. Your fans are all on pins and needles.

Related Links

 

Aristotle, by Billy Collins

UWS Poetry Prof's Collection Gets Pulitzer Consideration

Jayson Iwen Talks About Literature, Translation Work and Jawdat Fakhreddine's Lighthouse for the Drowning

Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins