“The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess…If the gatherer gathers too much, Nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest.”

                                                                                               “Compensation” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every year at this time, when winter arrives with its bone chilling cold, gray skies and short days, I console myself with the thought that the winter solstice, shortest day of the year, is also the end of the increasing darkness that envelops the northern hemisphere. For me, that is reassurance that nature will provide compensation eventually for the cruelty of winter. From that day forward, for the next six months, the days will get longer; the sun will come up earlier and set later. Spring will come, and summer won’t be far behind.

Emerson tells us that the world is governed by a law of compensation, that every negative has a positive; and every positive a negative, and that we need not wait for the hereafter, if one believes in that, for the law to work its will. “The farmer imagines power and place are fine things,” he writes. “But the President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne.”

So, as we enter this season, with the days becoming longer, the sun rising earlier and setting later day by day, I console myself that a certain balance governs the universe, that the law of compensation and the law of statistics—regression toward the mean—will hold.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy New Year to all. Keep the faith.