The Eye of the Storm

Often mistaken for moderation, my philosophy is, in truth, an extreme and active commitment to neutrality. This aligns with the fundamental understanding of Judo in martial arts: power is achieved through leverage. To obtain proper leverage, one must find the center as a pivot point. This very principle, embodying strength through balanced force, has always been the source of my own power. On the job, people watch me effortlessly toss packages well over a hundred pounds, purely through the proper use of this equilibrium. However, this transcends mere physical prowess; it is the central tenet of my philosophy, the unwavering commitment to finding and maintaining equilibrium. This commitment, I have found, is the key to understanding the grand interplay of existence itself, defined by four primal forces.

Along the north-south axis, we have good and evil. Law rises from the east; chaos sets in the west. Balance is the music of the spheres, the harmonizing force that binds all existence.

Consider good and evil. Neither exists without the other. They are the forces of life and death, manifest even in the most fundamental cycles: the arrival of a child, which we inherently deem good; the departure of an elder, which we naturally perceive as evil. Yet, because the concept of evil exists, good can also find its definition. If only children were born, we would quickly overpopulate the earth, leading to universal suffering. If only old people died, there would be no life. This is the inherent way of things. We strive to preserve life, which inherently means we must, at times, kill. One who is incapable of evil upsets this crucial balance of life and death.

This brings us to the horizontal axis: law and chaos. Every individual is endowed with free will. Through this freedom lies the path of life and death, the choice between good and evil. The wise person must know when it is time for life and when it is time for death, echoing Josey Wales's stark truth to his foes: "I carry with me words of death, so that you may know my words of life are true."

The inherent drive to live, a formidable will, means that for one to thrive, another might diminish. Life feeds on life. Thus, an unchecked will, left to its own devices, rapidly overpowers good. Unrestricted free will inevitably tends toward chaos, spiraling toward utter destruction. This is why we uphold the law—it is the collective will of society, intended so that all might live to their greatest potential. Yet, it is the nature of law to stifle freedom, to breed mediocrity, and to replace faith with ritual. This, in turn, stifles the spirit and leads to decay, an empty existence devoid of passion and joy.

So, the primal forces—good and evil, law and chaos—circle one another in mortal combat. This constant, dynamic interaction, where death battles life, laws strangle desire, and passion shatters enslaving bonds; where life, enraptured, creates and destroys; where good morphs into evil, and chaos births new forms of order—this is the circle of eight. These are not merely four concepts, but their ceaseless dance, the eight distinct, dynamic tensions born from their inherent dualities.

Thus, it is the art of the sorcerer, in the eye of the storm, to watch, to channel these forces, so they remain in balance. A precise push here, a delicate pull there—the art of the clockmaker, meticulously adjusting within a spinning matrix of chaos.