I have recently been thinking about how simply responding to problems is rarely sufficient in the long term.
A system - a man's set of habits, a society, plankton in a pond - exists in equilibrium until intruded upon. Most systems with staying power push back against the intruder. A very effective system will push back in full measure, matching the intruder force for force. Most systems are less effective and will instead meet the intrusion partially, burning the strength of both until the intruder can no longer advance or the system collapses.
Unless the intruder is evicted at the beginning a new equilibrium will eventually form, this time including & compensating for whatever changes the intruder has made.
If a system does not proactively address potential intruders, if a system does not have a territorial self-concept it is willing & able to reconquer after it has been intruded upon, that is to say, if a system is complacent, it will in the most perfect conditions merely not shrink and in an environment of threats will dwindle after each attack.
It is easy to look at the cultural conservative and see this in action but the concept is true across many contexts and scales.
In an environment of complacent maintainers and the aggressive go-getters the complacent will always eventually surrender to the aggressive. True, several aggressors may perish but the winner will always be an aggressor, never a maintainer.
The maintainer does not wish to engage in or win a conflict. The maintainer does not desire to rule the world. Let him not fear; these outcomes will never come to pass.
The complacent maintainer can only exist in an environment of order, whether natural or imposed. If imposed it is the legacy of past aggression that resulted in victory. Someday it will fall to a new aggressor.
If a maintainer lives long enough he will be conquered. If an aggressor lives long enough he will lose a war. In a long enough time scale equilibrium does not exist. Everyone is either mad enough to attack or content enough to maintain.
I think that a man who is entirely mad or entirely content is disordered. If entirely mad, no success will satisfy him. Though others may envy him he must never rest and will either be defeated by another mad man or become imprisoned in a body that can no longer carry out his wishes. If entirely content he will make peace with a world that has not made peace with him, and, knowing what is good, will live to see it stolen.
It is good to have a little madness in the blood.
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