Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.
EPICURUS
There are various definitions for the word "syzygy." For this blog post, I use the definition of syzygy that means a pair of opposites. I first discovered the word in an article by Scott Douglas discussing a picture from a Nike ad showing one person running at night outside in the rain while the other person was inside a cozy restaurant enjoying what I imagine was a nice steak paired with a whiskey and a cigar. The picture was a syzygy because the two people were opposites paired together for the photograph.
Douglas and his friends debated who had it better in the photograph. Then, Douglas had an epiphany. Why can't it be both? Why does it have to be all one thing and not the other? I asked myself the same question.
That article and the picture were from the 1990s if I remember correctly. I can't find that article online anywhere, but I never forgot the idea. I would end up living the idea in my 20s as I would run, work a physically demanding job, and eat garbage from Burger King and drink a few beers on the weekend. Needless to say, that is not my lifestyle now. But it was fun for a few years when I was too young and stupid to know any better.
I never lost the syzygy idea in my head. What I did was apply sensibility to the idea. I replaced running with fitness walking. I replaced burgers and beer with oatmeal and black coffee. There is still the swing of the pendulum, but its arc is not so wide or extreme for me now.
If we apply sensibility to the picture in the Nike ad, the person running in the rain would be walking instead. It would be a brisk walk but with the same attire. The person eating at the table would be having ice water and a plant based meal probably with pasta and a salad. That modified picture captures my life and thinking today. That is syzygy and sensibility.
