[size=3]I read this thread with some interest...
And I tried to resist adding to it, as it has been inactive for months, but I couldn't help myself.
You missed one of the basic principles involved when you gather people together. Or even take one person on their own. I am speaking, of course, of Murphy's Law - the Principle of Perversity. That things happen, usually at the most inconvenient time, to derail all the most carefully well-laid plans. That not everything that happens is sensible, or logical, or even reasonable. That no matter what precautions you take, you cannot guard against the perversity in others - or in your own nature.
And it is nature...It is one of the things that makes us aware, and thus tends to get overlooked in the general mill of living, but it is fundamental to who we are - and how we think. It allows us to cope with the uncertainty all around us, and it encourages personification of itself as an outside force.
((Maxwell posited just such a demon, who, on a small scale, would have illogical, ridiculous control over impossibilities and unlikelihoods. I encourage you to look him up.))
I would note in passing that Perversity covers fully three-quarters of the logical results of combining principles actively.
Think about it. [/size]
Awi - Of course Balance is relative - it is also inevitable, and usually takes care of itself.