Thursday, September 13, 2012

Sins of excess

In my book, moderation is a virtue, and excess is not. But what does that mean in practice? How do you know which is which, and is the boundary between the two fixed (absolute) or does it shift according to circumstances (relative). Is the boundary a fine line, or a vast gray area? And is it the same for everyone, or does it depend on the person?

I don't have the answers to these questions (yet), but I will start by collecting examples of excesses and hope that they will point the way to an answer. Here is my list so far.
  • Excessive (or should I say obsessive?) activity (work, exercise, play) is not good as a general rule, although the species may benefit (how else do you become a world class athlete, or concert pianist?). And working too much is not good as a general rule either, but most great companies were created by workaholics ...  Other examples of overexcessive activity include overprocessing food (thereby reducing its value) and overengineering recordings (idem ditto) 
  • Excessive consumption - consuming more than you need, and possibly more than is good for you, like eating too much (gluttony), watching too much t.v., talking the car when you could easily walk (or the opposite: excessive exercise - see below), taking long showers (to compensate for the fact that you work too much and need to relax),  etc.  Besides often not being good for the individual in the longer run, many types of excessive consumption can have negative effects on other humans, animals and the environment as well, so that one excess (consumption) begets others, including excessive accumulation (of wealth, shoes, ...) and excessive waste. 
  • Excessive emotion, either in general, or by getting stuck in a small range of emotions that are not appropriate responses to the situation. Idolatry ("number one fans"), people who wear anger, disappointment, bitterness, sadness like an old sweater, people who are consumed by fear (control freaks, fanatics)
  • Excessively simplistic judgement (things are either black or white), oversimplification in general ... 
[work in progress - additions/comments very welcome]