Pendulum Theory

The Preacher said, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die. A time to weep, and a time to dance. A time to mourn, and a time to laugh.”

Most people view the flow of history like a river: a cascade of causes to effects happening in one direction. But the flow of history is more like swirling eddy currents: back and forth in spiraling shapes and patterns. Perhaps the ancient Chinese philosophers took inspiration from the eddy currents when they conceptualized yin and yang:

A push and a pull. A call, and then a response. There and back again.¹

I like to call this perspective “pendulum theory.” When events move in one direction, opposing forces push them back the other way. This back-and-forth creates a kind of balance. Although things may not be perfectly centered at any moment, they tend to swing back and forth around the middle through time.

Pendulum Theory in Government

Let’s start big then go smaller…

Here’s a greek philosophy term for you: anacyclosis. According to anacyclosis, governments undergo an endless cycle of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.

In the beginning of the cycle, the people are ruled by the chaotic whims of mobs and violence. Then, a strong leader emerges from the conflict and unites the people as king. Under the new king, laws are enforced, subjects are provided for, and the people flourish for generations.

When the king dies, his son becomes the new king, and then his son becomes the king, and so on. Over the centuries, the kingdom gradually falls into tyranny. The living king inherits the throne by birthright, not through his own merits, and so he lacks the leadership skills that earned his ancestor the kingdom in the first place. His government no longer exists to serve the people; it exists to keep the king himself in power.

So the king is overthrown by a cohort of the wealthy and educated. They form an aristocracy. The aristocrats vow to avoid the stagnant tyranny of the preceding monarchy. Their aristocratic government will be guided by virtue! Not by blood. The well intentioned aristocrats maintain power for a time and the common people enjoy a new period of prosperity. But even the most well-intentioned aristocrats are susceptible to corruption. Thus aristocracy shifts into oligarchy.

The oligarchs are a parasite on the population. By and by, more resources are squandered on lavish living by the elites, and the people suffer. But one day the people rebel! Finally taking the power into their own hands, they establish a new form of government. Power shouldn’t be granted by birthright or mere intellect, they decide. Power should be granted by the consent of the majority - democracy is born!

By now you get the picture. Under democracy, the people thrive once again for years. Unfortunately, even democratic governments become corrupt, prioritize their own interests over the interests of the public, and the entire governmental structure collapses. The survivors fight among themselves in fractured bands, until a strong man unites the people once more. And the cycle begins anew.

Government is a pendulum.

The Acropolis rests above Athens

Fashion and Humor

As I was digging through my parent’s closet in middle school one day, I stumbled upon my mom’s old fanny pack. Fascinated by the utility (easily double or triple the real estate of two pockets!) I wore it to school the next day. The bullying that followed was so crippling that, to this day, I still struggle to ask a girl out without intense distress.

Imagine my indignation when fanny packs made a comeback 5 years later.

Fashion, just like government, is a pendulum. At first, a new fashion is adopted by the intrepid trend-setters. It’s 😵! It’s 👏! It’s like nothing anybody’s ever done before! After a while, the fashion gets adopted by nearly everybody and it becomes 🥱 😪. The technical term for this phenomenon is “going mainstream.” Once a fashion has gone mainstream, the trend-setters move on to the next niche and leave the old fashion behind.

But the cycle doesn’t end there! After about 20-30 years, some brazen iconoclast digs through their parent’s closet and finds the mom jeans. And… we’re back.

I never was one of those iconoclasts. 15 years late to fanny packs and 5 years too soon. But I won’t make the same mistake again. I’ve got about 7 pairs of really flattering skinny jeans ready for their comeback in 2040.

Hey girl…

It’s not just fashion. Remember when fart jokes were funny? Trick question, they’ve always been funny, you’ve only forgotten. The childlike twinkle in your eye has been extinguished by corporate America. What have they done to us?

Humor is a pendulum, not just the jokes themselves, but our reactions to them. I remember watching a Winnie the Pooh movie on VHS with one of my best friends back when I was 6. We found one scene so hilarious that we rewound the tape and replayed it over and over again for at least an hour. What was so funny? I couldn’t even tell you.

Comedy is a social phenomenon. Whenever I get to spend time with little kids, the stupidest things will make them laugh like crazy and I find myself laughing along. I’m not laughing because the joke is funny. I’m laughing because when I see them laugh, I see 6-year-old Noah laughing hysterically 18 years ago. I’m reminded that heaven belongs to the children. It’s a stochastic burst of joy two degrees removed from stimulus.

85% sure this was probably the movie. Maybe

The Pendulum Within

Maybe the real pendulum was inside us all along. Wait, I made that joke in the last essay. Dang.

We are a pendulum, trillions of cells in a periodic symphony we call “homeostasis.” With each breath, millions of alveoli expand to extract oxygen from the air before contracting in violent exhale. 20,000 breaths a day. 1 minute for a red blood cell to completely circulate the body. Our hearts pump blood through our veins day and night until they die from exhaustion. 100,000 heartbeats a day for 365 days for 80 years. 2.9 billion heartbeats per lifetime.

The first several months of our existence are marked by explosive growth. We reach our physical peak after about 25 years, stay there awhile, and then slowly decline. Our lives ripen before they fall from the tree and melt into the earth. Death begets new life.

I look out the window as the sun sets. It casts an auburn glow across the Rocky Mountains. The first time my dad took me hiking, it was in those mountains 15 years ago. It was cold and my hands were freezing because I didn’t bring gloves. The elevation gave me a migraine. I didn’t reach the summit that day, but we came back the next year and made it to the top that time.

As I’m staring at the window, thinking about my dad and that hike, my eyes rest on my reflection in the glass.

Love is a pendulum. It stretches out in long chains far into the past and beyond into the future. On and on it goes, swinging back and forth, back and forth. Simple and complicated. Outward and inward. Fiery, then dormant for awhile. And just when you think you’ve lost it forever, new life is blown into glowing coals and you love in a way you didn’t think you could before.

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Thanks for reading,

- Noah Bailey

1. Ha. Nice haiku, buddy