Acquaintances, people who don't know me very well, might be surprised to read that. Maybe some people who do know me well would be surprised to read that, too (but I doubt it). I think I've become pretty good at performing moderation over the years, and to the passing observer I probably come across as fairly level-headed.
In truth, the core of me has always vacillated between "completely indulgent hedonism" and "completely withholding asceticism"; rarely has it stopped to catch its breath on the sideline that is "moderation".
Upbringing certainly had something to do with it: My parents were complete opposites in many ways. My father was indulgent with food--he made mountains of things and ate heartily; my mother took small portions and ate like a bird. On the bizarre flip side of this, my father was obsessed with weight and health; my mother would begrudgingly eat a piece of broccoli when pressed, and would sneak us cookies and candy when my father wasn't looking. My father was not a teetotaler, but he didn't approve of intoxication and thought that anything consciousness-altering was a form of perversion, weakness, a symptom of some internal sickness; my mother used to secretly buy us bottles of vodka for our high school parties and then ask for someone to make her a screwdriver. My father detested smoking, to the point that he refused to marry my mother unless and until she gave up the habit; my mother secretly started smoking again when we were kids, and continues to smoke, despite his (and our) concerns and objections. My father was loud and expressive and commanding; my mother was quiet and tight-lipped and acquiescent. My father was critical and analytical; my mother was unconditionally accepting. My father had a very limited social circle, and was particular about whom he would call a "friend"; my mother wrote for the local newspaper, was elected to the school board, volunteered for anything and everything, and knew practically everyone in town. My father had a distant, often strained, relationship with his very small immediate family; my mother was one of nine children, and took us out to visit our aunts and uncles and dozens of cousins on an annual summer trip. My father was an atheist; my mother was Catholic.
My parents did not play two opposing roles in my childhood. There was no singular hedonist, no singular monk. But rather, each was the polar opposite of the other in many respects: they were both indulgent and both withholding, just about different things.
I don't think that either of them, or this dynamic alone, created my propensity for running to extremes--some of this, surely, is my nature. I was born with this sense of duality inside me. But it's probably more than sheer coincidence that I've been the most "extreme" of my siblings. My parents' opposing natures, their polarities, were the most pronounced when I was young. Their edges softened as we all got older, and time, age, wisdom and compromise made their differences a little less stark. If they were magnets, their fields seemed to weaken--they were not more drawn together, rather they were not so forcefully pushing apart from each other. I think this change in their relationship dynamic, and consequently in the way they related to and treated us, their children, is evident in aspects of my, my brother's and my sister's personalities. My younger brother also has an indecisive nature, but it is less dualistic and more impulsive in nature. His struggle seems to be less with how to behave and more with who to become. My youngest sister is the most temperate and prudent of the three of us, but she is also the most private and enigmatic. She seems like the kind of person who watched her older siblings take actions, make mistakes and receive consequences, and didn't want to engage in many of the patterns she'd already watched play out to conclusion. As I say these things about them, making these judgments and assessments, I'm also aware that my perspective about them is skewed, flawed and limited. Maybe they would agree with my appraisals, but maybe they'd laugh or frown and wonder how my reading of their natures is so disparate from their own internal self-assessments. So let's not dwell any further on the role my family played on what is ultimately a self-identified tendency toward dichotomous behavior, and turn the lens inward once again.
The Hedonist: Will drink an entire fifth of Jameson in a night. Will sit in bed and play video games while getting stoned all day. Will spend hours cooking over a gallon of French onion soup, just for myself, because I woke up in the mood for a bowl. Will listen to the archived episodes of my favorite podcast from the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep. Will arrive at a bar when they open and stay until after they close, stumbling home in the early hours of the next morning. Will initiate an important conversation with my partner, just before bed, that lasts for 3 hours, and I won't go to sleep or let up until it reaches its conclusion. Will eat an entire pizza, all by myself. Will read for a whole day, speaking to no one. Will get angry at the suggestion that I plan for the future, when all I want to focus on is today. Will be the loudest motherfucker in the room, and fuck you if you tell me to shut up. Will smoke a pack of cigarettes in a night, and walk to 711 alone at 3 AM to buy more. Will spend hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours making elaborate gifts for 20 different people at Christmas. Will watch an entire television series in 2 days. Will listen to a song that makes me cry, as loud as my headphones will go, on repeat. Will write for hours and hours without stopping.
The Ascetic: Will go the whole day without eating, because I don't have the time, because I don't need to yet, because I haven't earned it. Will sew old clothes and crazy-glue old shoes rather than spend money on anything new. Will walk the longer and harder way home, and will not get a car, because I don't want to get weak. Will not co-mingle finances, accept money, or ask for help, because I don't want to depend on anyone but myself. Will want to drink something, but will wait until I finish this thing, and then this other thing, and then just one more thing, and when I'm all done with everything I can have that drink. Will get angry at my partner for leaving a light on or leaving the shower running for too long, because it's wasting money. Will get upset when someone does something in a nonsensical or inefficient way, because that doesn't align with my internal set of organizational rules. Will work at such a speed that I have heart palpitations, that I feel dizzy, that I am out of breath. Will say, "Oh I'm fine! No thanks!" when offered something to eat or drink, whether I want it or not, because to accept would feel like I'm inconveniencing someone. Will panic at the thought of forgetting something or being unprepared, and will make outlines and lists for every situation. Will lock myself in the bathroom to cry, face pressed silent and streaming into a towel, trying to take up as little space as possible. Will have a single responsibility to attend to at 7 PM, but will spend the entirety of the day thinking about and preparing for it. Will sometimes be so focused that I forget to breath.
This is how it has often played out: I do not want to do anything, but if I am to do something I absolutely must do it, and it must be done completely and continuously until it cannot be done anymore, and it must be done perfectly, and no one must help me, but everyone must know I've done it, but that I didn't want to do it, but since I did that I did it the best and the most, and once I am done I must never do it again.
My carefully-practiced, hard-won moderation is like a cold-war, a stalemate, between the two opposing sides of my nature--neither will admit defeat, neither will be bested. So they stand, each holding one of my hands, locked in a tug of war with me in the middle, each pulling so hard that I stay relatively at center. It can be tiring. It hurts sometimes. It can also be peaceful, when both sides get exhausted and seem to let up simultaneously, neither side pulling and I am in fact present--that's probably the closest I can get to a real, intrinsic sense of moderation. As I've grown older, the two sides seem to tire more easily (or maybe they're only feigning fatigue to cover up something more shameful: a developing sense of apathy or complacency). Maybe they are like my parents, they aren't as strongly opposed to one another as they once were, their forces weakening with time. Maybe the attainment of moderation isn't inherent at all, but simply a by-product of the wearing away of stronger urges, the dulling down of sharper passions. That last somehow feels the most true to me, and I don't know whether to feel relieved or upset, peaceful or protesting.
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