Excess

This feels like “heavy” week.  Though it could end you “heavy” month or year.  I’ll play the blame game.  It is not me.  It’s others.  Well, I’m not convinced, so I do not know how you would be.
Someone was telling me yesterday that because of taking a substance in excess someone died.  It did get me considering excess.  I cannot think of one circumstance where excess is good.  Even desirable stuff is flawed if it is gotten in excess.  I guess I feel that way because balance is such a big thing with me.
I have hopes and dreams I am excited about.  I am happy to shoot for the stars, but glad those around help me keep my feet on the ground.  I think I do the same with them.
I had a guy assisting me at work who was going back to uni doing a science degree.  He was a smart boy.  I will always remember getting the phone call that he had died in the night of an overdose.  He was taking heroin thinking he was having a last splash before he studied again.  Unbeknown to him he was having a last splash alright.  He left behind him misery and devastation and many why’s.  I kept on the wall a photo he took from a car that was driving along the beach.
He died of excess.  He was not looking for it, but it happened.  The strength of what he took was greater than he imagined.  It really brings home to me a piece of advice I received decades ago and that was “it is not how close to danger you go, but how far you keep from it.”
That has rung in my ears many times since.  Excess is an amount of something that is more than desirable.  I do not imagine killing oneself is desirable unless it is sought.  On tv I see so many living in opulence.  Eating and drinking over the top.  I really have no problem with opulence when the motivation is to touch others.  But for some it seems that if enough is good, more must be better.
It seems so many billionaires have become philanthropists.  Personally I will take it.  The source matters less to me than the use of it.   But for many it is like, “I have more than I will ever need so I may as well give it away.”  Only a giver knows their motivation, but it really seems to me a person who gives despite need is more admirable than one who gives out of abundance.
But the problem is not giving but excess.  There is a word that is the opposite of excess that seems to be out of vogue and that is moderation.  Someone I know drinks less these days and said there was always someone who would take things too far when drinking to excess.  Although there are some things I would not touch, most are a matter of conscience and ok in moderation.  It seems excess always leads to taking things too far.