In the middle of the Gerechtigkeitsgasse, the main street of the ancient Bern, the fountain of justice is dominated by the statue of a woman with blindfolded eyes who holds an executioner’s sword in one hand and a scale in the other. The busts of a pope, an emperor, a sultan and a mayor are at her feet, or is it their heads that she has cut off when performing her service. In any case, this indicates that the powers in place must also be subject to its judgment.
Before striking her sword, it is necessary to expect that the pros and cons will be weighed in order to render a balanced judgement. If she is blind, it is to not let herself be impressed or corrupted, to be attracted by beauty when it could be evil, or be rebuffed by the ugly that could be on the side of the truth. There will be a culprit convicted or an innocent released, which will satisfy or not the plaintiff who is seeking justice. Her well balanced common sense, her knowledge, allow her to decide, an act that precisely does not lead to a balanced situation. With her scale she will have to detect any imbalance, even small between large weights, which will allow her to decide and formulate her sentence.

It looks like as if that there exists a natural balance. Nothing is less certain. We must realize that, like the acrobat walking on a thread, it is rather a permanent state of multiple imbalances that characterizes nature. Each inequality provokes a reaction to find a position called equilibrium; without such inequality nothing would happen, neither photosynthesis, nor wolf predation on sheep, nor the victory of courage over fear. It is from a dynamic perspective that a sense of continuity and predictability is established, despite the opposition of forces that can be considerable.

The result of all these forces which oppose or combine themselves has the appearances of an equilibrium; it is however only a temporarily stationary state. Good health is as ephemeral as illness; the bike only keeps in balance because it moves forward; and everything ends up changing. On the other hand, the more complex the system is and the smaller are a large number of its components, the less fragile it is. Big pieces are the most disturbing.

It’s actually very good news that nature, and our societies, function in an unbalanced way. For we do not live in a thermodynamic equilibrium that would exist if the state of A were exactly the same as that of B, which is moreover an idealized theoretical representation, never true in the real world; and we must not aspire to it. Because in this case, it would be impossible for something to happen between A and B; it would be a situation of total inactivity, without work or change, but never an expression of harmony.

Perhaps is this a state sought by meditation. If this is the case, it is to be hoped that it will be for short moments and that we will come back to life in order to avoid nothingness.

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