Australia and the World Past and Present

I have broken a few guitar strings in my time.

I think I once broke a string just by installing it.

I secured it at one one end and placed the other end in one of the tuning pegs. Then I began to tighten. And tighten and tighten.

It was the first time I had ever installed my own string, so it was unsurprising that I misjudged how far I should go.

And then the string snapped.

I have snapped a few others too, where wear and tear played a role. They gradually lost their resilience over time.

Nevertheless, the tension on the line and the force upon it from the strumming became too much.

We too are like the string.

We can be wound up or wound down. We can be highly-strung or more loose.

The two extremes are the these – tight and loose and there are problems at the extremes.

When a guitar string is too lose, it doesn’t produce the sound that it should. It is not in harmony with the sounds of the other strings. It can not play its role. It won’t react appropriately to outside influence. It won’t respond in the right way.

Likewise, a person who is too loose will appear somewhat lethargic. They will be slow to get going and will be consistently behind the moment.

But I ask you, is it better to be too tight or too loose? I would suggest that being too tight may be worse. A loose string will not function very will, but it will not break. A tight string is very likely to break. A loose string will maintain its structure even though that structure leaves much to be desired.

It seems that is better to be the loose string than the tight one.