The pluses and minuses of life

It’s funny how often I come across some quotation which seems particularly relevant.  A few days ago, I read the following in, of all things, a detective story: “Things always have to even themselves out between plus and minus.  Between going forward and going back.  That’s the only way to live.”

I like the to think that life has to balance itself between pluses and minuses (acupuncturists would say, between yin and yang).  We tend to hope, unrealistically, that somehow the life we live should always be lived on the plus side.  Far better to accept that every plus needs its minus, for this brings the necessary tension which moves us towards change.  Time always hustles us along despite ourselves, jolting us out of complacency, as a minus does its companion plus and plus its minus, and as yin does its yang and yang its yin.

Interesting to find such a potentially deep thought tucked away between the covers of a simple detective story.