Chiaroscuro in art is the use of intense light and dark sections to create depth, drama, and contrast. Like symmetry or geometric patterns, it's a recurring theme at all levels of life. The light and dark of day and night. Joy and misery. Right and wrong. Strength and weakness. It's a universal rule that every thing has an opposite. For every moralizing priest there is a Nietzsche, efficiently tearing down their temples.
The feedback loop also comes to mind. If you hold a microphone with an amplifier near it's associated speaker, you hear a high pitched ringing from the speaker. This ringing gets exponentially louder and higher until you either move the microphone, or the speaker explodes. This is an example of a positive feedback loop. You start with an initial input, even a small one. That gets fed through the output and then back in as a second input. This amplifies and amplifies.
We can use these principle to enhance our lives. If we, like Icarus, are flying too close to the sun, we can bring in just a little bit of night to even us out. Or if we're in the pitch blackness that overtakes us sometimes, just a little spark can be enough to overtake the dark.
Revelations 3:16 reads: "...because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." The Lord, it seems, doesn't like the medium road. Be all the way good, or be all the way bad, because if you're only a little bad, you will feel no remorse and so will remain in sin. This same idea is echoed in relationships. We'll stay with a relationship where 6/10 interactions are good, because it's "good enough".1 Or we'll stay in a 6/10 job for the same reason. If it just got a bit worse we'd have the courage and motivation to leave. We'd finally have the impetus to make the decision we should have long ago.
I've been pushing myself to work, really work, for 12 hours a day for the past 2 months. For the first month it was great. It was difficult, but I had plenty to do and plenty of bandwidth to complete tasks. Now, as time wears on, I find myself tired. I will continue working, but now I've got to figure out how to rest as intensely as I work. I've almost reached the point where I've been one-sided for too long. I need to find some deep, abiding peace along the way.
Chiaroscuro also brings to mind the wholeness that comes from contrast. In "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover"2 Moore and Gillette lay out the most complete vision of the male psyche I've ever seen and it's defined by contrasts. King to Magician. Warrior to Lover. Holding that balance is what being a man is all about. It's Wizard-Barbarianism at it's finest. "They fear the Goon who can calculate."
This balance doesn't have to be a daily activity though. Alex Hormozi has this idea about work-life balance. In summary he believes it's bullshit. He would rather work 16 hours a day 7 days a week for 10 years and then rest for 20 years than work a 9-5. For him it's about times and seasons. Times of work, nose to the grindstone, preparing for times of play, when hammock time is the biggest goal you have.
I'm not saying purposefully tank your life in order to motivate an updraft. But I am saying that rock bottom can be wherever you are. Use the fuel you have to get to where you want to be. Embrace the contrast as part of life and stop worrying about the average.