I’m a big fan of paper. I, too, wonder about why offices keep trying to go paperless. There’s something nice an tangible about a piece of paper that can’t be duplicated on screen.

For me, balance is important, but it is static and so it exists mainly in a snapshot – a historical look back. Real living involves much flux – it is accomplished in a fluid state. I always think of a teeter totter – if it were always balanced where would the fun be? Or the tides providing life support for all sorts of marine life, the pendulum on the clock that hangs on my wall, the surface of the water as a stone is tossed into the pond, on and on.

This next bit is mostly unrelated but it illustrates a side reason why I love reading your blog. You triggered a humorous memory I thought I’d share. Ten years ago I was working in a lab focused on animal feed research. We were in the middle of a huge experiment, utilizing about fifteen technicians in production line fashion to do a complex set of hands-on, physical manipulations on samples of silage. One of our analytical balances suffered a fatal failure (I think the circuit board got wet and fried or something). We could no longer weigh samples and this brought the whole process to a standstill. For about ten minutes I ran from lab to lab looking for a balance that I could borrow. Finally, seeing that I was a little harried, one of my co-workers helped me with a little reality check, saying “What the h*** are you doing that is so important?”. That really did the trick. Realizing (finally) the futility of becoming so excited/irritated, I replied, in my most relaxed and “zen” voice “I’m just seeking balance, man”. We no longer work together, but we still laugh about that moment today.