It's kind of funny how people go through most of their life trying to rationalize going one way or the another, thinking they finally find the right way but then realizing this way has it's own problems too.

I call it the yin-yang problem for myself. I am absolutely certain people had this concept a lot earlier than the Chinese and all over the world too. But yin-yang is simple for me to remember, especially when I fall into the trap myself.

From my early teens to now in my mid forties I have been trying to find the right balance between: 1) having strong values/principles, not accepting people or at least people's behaviors that I consider below my standards and 2) not being a fucking holier-than-though for whom nobody and nothing is good enough. And this is not a purely intellectual pursuit either, I have been burned by going either direction in ways that impacted my quality of life.

Religion and philosophy has handled this a long time ago. But my upbringing and education have been completely secular. Religion and philosophy where laughed at and turned into the straw man variants of "yeah, right, there's an old guy with a beard on a cloud". And now, no matter how hard I try to forcefully inject yin-yang into my rational mind it doesn't take roots. I think reason is not a good soil for it. And think it's way to late to incorporate it into other parts of my personality.

I said it's funny because, like in the medium post, you find out you need yin-yang to learn yin-yang. And because going with a complete rational and secular education I am of course far from the balance line. Fucking yin-yang, the original catch-22 which keeps fucking me up.