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Campus life by Zuni Chopra: The duality of happiness
Don’t live your life in the middle, struggling to keep the see-saw straight, staring longingly at the promise of exhilaration dangling at either end. Everything in moderation – even extremes…
Life is about balance. It’s a sentiment you’ll find on the back of every yoga brochure or meditative spa catalogue. It is also, as most ceaselessly circulated advice is, exasperatingly vague. Balance what? One cannot simply ‘balance’ without knowing what it is that must be balanced. We assume that they mean things such as work and play, sleep and social lives (which none of us have anymore). Most people you ask will admit to being off-balance – “I work too much,” they might say, or perhaps, “I drink too much.” Curious how so little of us would ever certify ourselves as ‘balanced’. Perhaps this is because we imagine balanced people as nothing other than the very commercials that advertise this balance: tipping over in a yoga pose on a snow-covered mountain top, face glazed over in unconditional peace.
However, I would like to tentatively suggest that perhaps we’ve gotten this – as humans have so many other essential aspects of existence – all wrong. Picture balance as the two ends of a see-saw. The balance, then, at its heart, is made up of extremes. Two polar opposites that let the see-saw settle into an unflinching rest. If our lives are the see-saw, then we’ve been wasting time trying to shove all the weight to the center; and then gasping in surprise when the see-saw won’t stay still. I would go so far as to say that a life must be built on a foundation of extremes.
How have I come to this epiphany, you may ask? Prepare yourself, for the answer may surprise you. Netflix. A deity we have become all too familiar with over the last nine months. One of the beauties of Netflix is that it allows you to pursue more than one story at once. I don’t know about the rest of you, but my ‘Continue Watching’ section streams off the screen into eternity. This past month, I’ve delved into two shows, polar opposites, at the same time. The first, the candied epitome of fluffy, sweet escapism: Emily in Paris. The second, a darkly distinguished, haunting masterpiece delving into the tragedy of genius: The Queen’s Gambit. Both excellent shows. Both so unlike each other that, like oil and water, one could never link them together in the mind. However, I watched them at the same time, flitting back and forth, over the course of a few weeks. It worked beautifully. Here’s why. Watching a nine-year-old child chew ferociously into a handful of pills can be quite a mind-warping thing, and watching a young twenty-something in Chanel gushing to an attractive French chef about his omelets quite a mind-numbing one. I felt I could properly relish the dark because, thanks to the light, it did not consume me; I felt I could properly enjoy the light because, thanks to the dark, it did not make me light-headed and dizzy. Quite a dramatic way to consider my Netflix history, I know, but what can I say? We writers are short on inspiration these days.
My conclusion, then, is this: a rich life, a life diverse and bursting with colour and truly, undeniably well-lived, can only come with extremes. Safe and reckless. Striving and snoozing. Exploring and challenging. Dare to do things you feel might be ‘too much’; deign to do things you feel might be ‘too little’. Don’t live your life in the middle, struggling to keep the see-saw straight, staring longingly at the promise of exhilaration dangling at either end. Everything in moderation – even extremes.
Zuni Chopra is currently a freshman at Stanford university where she’s studying the creative arts. She has authored three books of poetry and one novel. Through this column, she chronicles her journey as an international student leaving home for the first time to study abroad.
From HT Brunch, December 13, 2020
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