The Potter and the True Wheel

Years ago, in philosophy class, we talked about the work of the potter.

The potter sits at his spinning pottery table with a mound of wet clay in front of him. The clay starts to rotate and he gets to work. He uses both hands, and for different things. One hand (lets say the left) works from the inside pushing the clay outwards into the desired shape while the other hand (right) is on the exterior pushing back so that in between, a shape is born. You can’t have one without the other; too much pushing from the inside will warp the piece too much and too much from the outside wont produce anything useful at all.

The next time I encountered this idea was truing wheels in a bike shops. In making a buckled wheel straight, I had to contend with a fine interplay of tightening and loosening so that the wheel was perfectly tensioned, and straight. Too much on any side and it would bend. Same idea; “a little bit of love, a little bit of law”. A goldilocks moment.

Or take the example of children. Too much love? Possibility of being spoiled. Too much law? Risk of being "over-parented".As the years have gone by, I have seen this principle crop up in more and more places. Politics, advice, personal finance, relationships, shoes. Yes even shoes. Good shoes are 50/50 love and law. Nice to look at and simultaneously, useful. Golf has a mix of power and precision, love and law. Having a debate with someone involves a healthy mix of opinion giving (law) and being open to the idea of having your own changed (love).

AltMBA projects are a mix of answering the questions asked (law) and giving it your all within those constraints (love). Even the coaches practice this, by being fully there for us throughout, but also encouraging us to reach out to the group, or deeper inside ourselves.

Throughout my life, I feel that there has been a similar pair of forces at work, that continue to this day. It’s a recurring pattern in things that I encounter every day. Look at the statement “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Look what that did for Jack Torrance.

I even saw it in myself when I was at a low in my life, at an extreme. It felt like there were no laws. I had gone too far into the realm of soft action, thoughts and feelings. I was living and taking action in my head only, instead of in the real world. I was having no effect on the world around me. I wasn’t moving anywhere. I had no law to temper me into forward momentum so I stewed.

I believe that most things in life have an internal motivation, and that motivation springs from the constant friction and battling between love and law. It’s only in the perfect balance of these 2 forces that calm is attained, that beautiful art is made.