“The world only exists because opposing forces are held in equilibrium.”- Carl Jung
Be a neutralizing force. Make sure you can swivel your strength. Do not only push left or push right, only up or down. If you feel an idea has come to dominate, it is usually advisable to push against it. No side ever just wants to win. The victorious are apt to keep playing until every contested victory becomes a complete rout. If humanity wants to do anything, it also wants to do it to excess. For the sake of holy equilibrium, always be on the lookout for worthy underdogs to team up with. The best dynasties are led by seeing-eye underdogs!
You ask: Am I necessarily against the times? No, I am pushing back against them like a car that has gone off its blocks, threatening to roll. I want nothing more than to be a part of communities that deserve that name and to be an outsider in ones defined only by geographic proximity. Why live as an outsider? Well, for one, to be in a better position to retrieve the dogs of humanity’s better judgment that have gone astray! Could it be that the best guard dogs also instinctually abandon that which is not worth guarding?
Equilibrium creates the ultimate good. Those forces most disruptive to equilibrium, at whatever time and place, are my natural opponents. Also, do not be afraid to change teams! When the stronger can retain its strength without you, consider the merits of the weaker! A culturally habitable world is one where the forces contained within it are constantly fighting to a draw.
Friends, always be on guard against threats to holy equilibrium - in all spheres. Imagine the Earth’s axis slightly shifted, the sun moved a few space miles closer: everything in the world you inhabit would be subject to instantaneous evaporation! But do not misunderstand me, equilibrium is just as much an act of creation as it is one of conservation! Great works of art balance universal questions and soothe minds torn by conscious winds with equal but opposite forces, to create moments of inner stillness. Yes, seek to create equilibrium or preserve it! Wisdom is the quiet breath able to perceive, without disrupting it, the ridiculous balancing act responsible for the stability of even the most taken-for-granted facts of life.
Times of great unrest and chaos also tend to be times of great philosophical agreement. This is because too much agreement on what constitutes the ultimate good (and status indicators of such) leads to increased competition to achieve it! Perfected differentiation, however, leads to the most peaceful equilibrium.
What a danger it is to believe that only good exists and that everything bad is just misunderstood good! Such a belief provides camouflage for the monsters you yourself should be hiding from and helps them in their pursuit of you. Instead, admit the bad, so that you can strengthen the good in equal measure. The greatest victories come from battles that never even begin.