On earth, between the two, both one thing and the other. We stand between the two extremes, and therefore share both. Fate varies: all is not good luck nor all mischance... Indifference at its ups and downs is prudent... Our life gets as complicated as a comedy as it goes on, but the complications get gradually resolved: see that the curtain comes down on a good dénoûment.
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
Life is neither the bliss of heaven nor the misery of hell but a mix of both, and expecting either pure version is a setup for disappointment or despair. Since fate genuinely varies, the wise posture is a steady indifference to its swings, not coldness, but the equanimity that comes from expecting both good and bad and being overturned by neither. The maxim's closing image is worth keeping: life is a comedy whose complications resolve as it goes, and the thing to aim for is a good final act. How the story ends colours the whole of it, so through all the mixed middle, keep an eye on landing the ending well. Steadiness through the swings, and care for the last act.
Practice
- Expect the mix; a life planned for pure good luck breaks on the first reversal, and one braced for pure misery misses the real good (maxim 194's double posture).
- Practise equanimity through the swings; the same steadiness that does not crash in the low does not lose its head in the high.
- Keep an eye on the ending; through the complicated middle, aim to bring the curtain down on a good final act (maxim 59 finishes well).
Use this when
- Use this as a standing frame for a life or a career, both of which are mixed and both of which swing.
- Use it in the extremes especially; the low that feels permanent and the high that feels deserved both pass, and equanimity outlasts them.
Ignore this when
- Don't let indifference become disengagement; equanimity is steadiness through the swings, not a refusal to care about the outcome (maxim 192 keeps what concerns you close).
- Don't obsess over the ending to the neglect of the middle; the final act is aimed for, not lived in advance.
A picture of it
For years a man reads each career high as proof that life has turned permanently good and each setback as proof it has turned permanently bad, and the whipsaw exhausts him and everyone near him. A long run of reversals finally teaches what the good years never could: the highs were not the arrival and the lows are not the end, both are just the normal weather of a mixed life. He stops being overturned by either, holds the steadier frame, and begins keeping one eye on landing his career's final act well. His fortunes did not become less mixed. He simply stopped letting each swing rewrite the whole story.
Life is the mixed middle, not the pure extreme. Ride the swings without being overturned, and aim to end the story well.