Constructive Work Heals and So Prepares and Distinguishes

February 1, 2009 by David Eggleton

"For his different purposes man needs many different structures, both small ones and large ones, some exclusive and some comprehensive. Yet people find it most difficult to keep two seemingly opposite necessities of truth in their minds at the same time. They always tend to clamour for a final solution, as if in actual life there could ever be a final solution other than death. For constructive work, the principal task is always the restoration of some kind of balance. Today, we suffer from an almost universal idolatry of giantism. It is therefore necessary to insist on the virtues of smallness--where this applies." -- E. F. Schumacher

Thus, Schumacher gave his 1973 book the title Small is Beautiful, and gave those who didn't absorb that paragraph the wrong idea. They figured he meant everything should be small. Obviously, he did not mean that. He was pleading for balance.

Balance is best for meeting anything coming. That balance is dynamic, not static or rigid, is important to remember. Seeing how balance can be achieved and maintained provides clues to appropriate scale and appropriate ratios.

Developing a local economy is restoring a balance that can make this community better able to respond to changes it can neither prevent nor refuse. The more threats of random and imposed change that you and I identify and anticipate, the more appropriate our balancing acts will be. If they are coordinated or collaborative and excellent, we can approach immunity. Immune or not, we can profitably become truer to ourselves and our place (locale, not station in life) -- more authentic and distinct. The associated knowledges and understandings are invaluable.

We are the sum of a unique equation.