No Expansion Without Equilibrium

Define: Equilibrium - balance or equality of distribution.

I thought after last month's post on patriotism, I would do a blog post on equilibrium. Equilibrium (as shown earlier) means balance or equality of distribution and is, what I believe, we should strive to gain in everything. Control is very important in our lives, lest our world as we know it descends into anarchy. Staying on the theme brought up by last month's post (See Patriotism: It's Not so Black and White) shows why equilibrium is useful. The most common example of extreme patriotism is the football hooligan; They travel to foreign cities and countries and trash the place in various overly violent and usually drunken ways and people wonder why (and how) anyone could do such a thing and get away with it. Now, don't get me wrong, their are probably hundreds of reasons behind each and every situation, but I'll try to outline a few and relate them back to my main topic.

Firstly, alcohol. This is one of the main things that causes trouble and unnecessary violence in our society and yes, it's not everyone who decides to drink extortionate amounts of the stuff and expect people to accept it, but nevertheless, there are still those who will use it as an excuse to be overly violent, and in the case of football hooligans, they have another reason to lose their sense of balance.

Secondly, patriotism. This gives football hooligans an excuse to get drunk and smash the place because their team has won and they want to celebrate, or their team has lost and they want to drown the despair of defeat in a pint of beer. Supporting and upholding your nation's culture and past and being proud of it is one thing, but equilibrium is important in these sort of situations as, if your pride for your nation takes over, you can lose all sense of logic and common sense to an overwhelming feeling of pride and violence towards those who would challenge that. This overwhelming pride, combined with the effects of alcohol can be a devastating and highly dangerous mix and can lead to riots, assault and even murder (or mass murder in the cases of some although that tends to be due to a medical condition or a drug rather than alcohol). This is why we should strive for balance on the tightrope that is life for, if we lose that sense of balance, we can lose our footing and plunge to our death.

PS The title was taken from a quote from the PS2 and PC game called Fire Warrior and in full is:
No expansion without equilibrium.

No conquest without control.

Pursue success in serenity.

And service to the tau'va.