Kelrax Lorcken wrote: lol @ Fyxe and obi1shinobi, I'd argue that balance isn't just a matter of tit-for-tat action and reaction, though it certainly can seem that way.
On a personal level, it could just as easily be a matter of perspective and attitude- the more one strives to be an absolute paragon of virtue and what not, the harder it becomes to actually view the world around you in even a neutral way, nevermind a positive light. Hammers and nails, you know?
A better analogy, though, would be to just look at the natural world; things have a funny way of just sorting themselves out, one way or another.
I have to agree on the issues of fandom, though- when dealing with more entitled, toxic circles, well, sometimes you can't handle people with kid-gloves. Sometimes people are wrong, plain and simple, and sometimes it takes making people uncomfortable (best exemplified by the hosts expression when the rant was done) to get them actually listening, actually thinking.
Sometimes we don't like what we hear simply because of the source, but sometimes we don't like it because it's true. That's when honest introspection can do a lot of good. Don't find ways to shrug it off and move on (again, like the host), don't just dismiss it for not liking it, ask yourself why you didn't like it. Sometimes the things we don't want to hear are things that need to be said.
I've come to a point where I don't believe in the grey, myself. A "grey" perspective, I've observed, is often just one that refuses to ignore other factors, opinions and facts simply to make something simpler than it really is. As Pratchet once wrote, "there are no shades of grey, only white that's gotten grubby".
I was going to say something similar to this.
On the question of balance...
The Force doesn't (imo) have a will to help or harm old ladies. Neither is there a scenario where a quota of old ladies need to not be helped. The balance as it relates to life and death is that an old man or lady dies and a new boy or girl is born. So there's already a cycle there. One doesn't have to die a certain way just as one doesn't have to live a certain way. The way you live is a balance of your decisions and your environment. The way you die, same thing.
The Force is also unstable and imbalanced by its very nature. The pendulum is always moving as the universal equation is always trying to balance itself. It does this through us and without us. Some ladies don't die crossing the street. Some babies are never born. Interceding on behalf of an old person is the same as a parent saving the life or a baby. And sometimes babies die from SIDS and sometimes old people survive heart attacks. There's no 1:1 because the universe isn't balanced. There's not an equal amount of matter and antimatter.
But balance paints in broad strokes. It simply depends on the equation; how it will balance itself.
