A striking balance

Don't you just love these colors?  Even though these are just plastic boats (I usually prefer to photograph old wooden dinghies) I thought they were just beautiful together.

And part of the reason is that blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel (like green and red, and purple and yellow).  Which means if you were to mix them together, you'd get this ugly brown color.  But when you put them side by side, they just pop.  Which is a good thing!

Which makes me think about a conversation we had at dinner tonight, about the importance of balance.  Initially we were talking about hi-tech corporations, and how they need a balance of sales and engineering to function well.  And then we thought, well, humans need a balance of right and left brain functions. 

And then I thought, well, marriage needs a balance, too -- and certainly mine (in which we are opposites in lots of ways) seems more stable as a result of that.  But we kind of need to stand a bit separate, be who we are, not blend into one another, because maybe things get a little muddy when we get too interdependent.  At the same time, what keeps us together is common values, shared experiences, and a sense that both of us are committed to something larger than ourselves.

And what does that say about our two-party system, or the imbalance between rich and poor?  Isn't it possible we need all these different ways of looking and being in the world to achieve a balanced picture?  And maybe it's not important that we all agree on all the issues -- because surely in such a case something important might get overlooked.  Perhaps it's only necessary for us to find some common ground -- or water -- in which we can float together; some shared commitment to something larger than ourselves...