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In Moderation

"Ne quid nimis. (nothing in excess)" - Inscription at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi

The human body and national economies, despite operating at vastly different scales, both grapple with a fundamental challenge: the management of surplus. This connection illuminates a broader principle that echoes through philosophy, religion, and natural systems that excess, even of good things, can become problematic without proper management. I have always felt like that life is full of such correlations when viewed from a certain perspective.

The human body operates as a sophisticated economic system where calories function as currency. Just as economist John Maynard Keynes observed that "the importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future", calories represent stored potential energy that bridges immediate needs with future survival.

Consider the sedentary individual consuming 2,500 calories daily while expending only 1,800. This 700-calorie surplus mirrors a nation running a persistent budget surplus. Initially, this seems beneficial, after all, having extra resources provides security. However, both systems face similar challenges in managing this excess.

In the human body, surplus calories trigger what researchers call "metabolic inflexibility", the inability to efficiently switch between fuel sources. That caloric excess leads to:

  • Elevated cortisol levels (chronic stress response)
  • Increased inflammatory markers
  • Insulin resistance
  • Elevated resting heart rate

This biological "overheating" parallels how economic surplus can destabilize financial systems through inflation, asset bubbles, and resource misallocation.

Imagine facing a pizza too large to consume, a perfect metaphor for surplus management. The pizza's value diminishes with time; it must be shared, stored, or wasted. Similarly, a nation with GDP surplus faces the "pizza problem" at a macro scale.

Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, worth over $1.4 trillion, exemplifies strategic surplus management. Rather than allowing oil revenues to overheat the domestic economy, Norway channels excess into international investments, following what economists call the "permanent income hypothesis"-consuming based on long-term wealth rather than current income.

Conversely, consider the cautionary tale of Venezuela during the oil boom of the 2000s. Economist Ricardo Hausmann noted that the country's resource surplus led to "Dutch disease", where abundant natural resource exports cause currency appreciation, making other sectors uncompetitive. Like consuming an oversized pizza in haste, Venezuela's failure to manage surplus strategically contributed to economic instability.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton

Surplus creates opportunities for corruption in several systems:

  • In the human body, excess energy from food consumption can fuel inflammatory pathways and cellular damage through oxidative stress.
  • Similarly, economic surplus without proper oversight becomes fertile ground for corruption.
  • An employee over-working creates a "surplus of effort" that initially seems beneficial. However, this excess leads to cognitive function decline (Case Study), corrupted family relationships and social bonds.
  • The overuse of antibiotics creates a surplus that corrupts biological systems on both micro and macro levels. It corrupts the body's delicate microbiome by eradicating beneficial bacteria and thereby impairing the natural function of the immune system, and it also drives the evolution of drug-resistant superbugs.
  • Social media's relentless optimization for engagement creates a systemic surplus that corrupts the information ecosystem. By prioritizing hyper-personalized content, these platforms corrupt democratic discourse, trapping users in echo chambers and filter bubbles that erode a shared reality. This same algorithmic excess corrupts individual well-being on a personal level; the surplus of curated, idealized content distorts self-image through constant social comparison, while the optimization techniques themselves foster addictive usage patterns, corrupting healthy behavior.

Historian Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History identified a pattern where civilizations often decline not from scarcity, but from the inability to manage abundance constructively. Ancient Rome's grain dole system, intended to manage agricultural surplus, arguably contributed to civic decay by reducing citizen engagement.

Similarly, anthropological evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies maintained health and social cohesion partly through forced periods of scarcity that prevented the accumulation of destabilizing surpluses.

Religious and philosophical traditions worldwide recognize this principle:

  • Buddhism: The Middle Way between asceticism and indulgence
  • Islam: Wasatiyyah (moderation) as described in Quran 2:143: وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلْنَـٰكُمْ أُمَّةًۭ وَسَطًۭا "We have made you a (balanced - just - upright - middle) community"
  • Aristotle: The Golden Mean, virtue as the balanced point between extremes
  • Confucius: "The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions"

Modern research validates these ancient insights. Psychologist Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice demonstrates how too many options decrease satisfaction; even good things become problematic in excess.

Optimal functioning requires dynamic balance, not static surplus. True wisdom lies not in accumulating maximum resources, but in developing the systems and discipline to manage them wisely.

Whether managing personal health or national wealth, the goal isn't to maximize any single metric but to create sustainable, resilient systems capable of adapting to changing conditions. The pizza that's too large to eat teaches us the same lesson as the GDP surplus that destabilizes an economy: in life, as in systems theory, the sweet spot lies not in the extremes of surplus and deficit but in the thoughtful, strategic middle ground.

The path forward requires embracing what we might call "intelligent moderation," not the moderation of mediocrity, but the sophisticated balance that maximizes long-term flourishing over short-term abundance. In this light, both our bodies and our societies become laboratories for practicing the ancient art of wisdom: knowing when enough is enough and having the courage to act on that knowledge.