The Contemplative Balance

I am growing tired of extremes.
I've been asking myself when I will reach a point where I realize that contemplation is a necessity. I tend to treat it like a bad habit that needs to be repressed. But when I ignore contemplation, I notice characteristic consequences pop up. First, my utilization of mind numbing entertainment sky rockets. After that, it's social binges. And after those, after realizing how unfulfilling both of those are, it's sitting in my room eating spoonfuls of chocolate and feeling sorry for myself.
That sounds dramatic, but it's true. When I choose to not nurture the spirituality that I tend towards, I spiral downward faster than an crashing jet. Not to mention, when weeks or even months go by of ignoring it, I notice key aspects of my personality getting dumbed down as well--my intellect, my sense of humor, my social skills. Because by rejecting contemplation, I'm rejecting the way God created me and therefore rejecting myself. How can I thrive when I'm repressing the very thing that gives me life?

But then there's the other extreme. The contemplative life is a fairly new concept for me, I've only known about it less than a year. But as I've been exploring it, I began noticing that, just like everything else, contemplation has the ability to get distorted and skewed, very slowly and subtly, with us hardly noticing. In The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton talks about how great heights can be reached by 'metaphysical speculation', and that it can introduce someone into great and pure pleasures, that only get deeper as you speculate more on things you're learning. But sometimes, even if someone is learning great things about the Christian faith, those speculations won't transcend the 'natural realm' (the tangible world, visible to the eye) into the 'spiritual realm' (the world invisible to the eye, or, union with God, which is the purpose of contemplation).

He goes on to say, "In such an event, you get, not contemplation, but a kind of intellectual and esthetic gluttony--a high and refined and even virtuous form of selfishness. And when it leads to no movement of the will towards God, no efficacious love of Him, it is sterile and dead, this meditation, and could even accidentally become, under certain circumstances, a kind of a sin--at least an imperfection."
At first, that was hard for me to read. It made my stomach turn thinking that this new spiritual discipline I had discovered had the potential to turn really ugly. But on the other hand, I was slightly comforted because I figured out why I would sometimes come out of time spent in reflection and solitude (times that were supposed to be rich with inner peace and satisfaction of communion with a Being completely outside of myself) feeling weighted by selfishness, my sight darkened by self indulgence.
And I'm still working on finding the balance. Judging by my track record with life, you can probably guess that it will take me a long time to figure it out. Although I'm finding that all things concerning God are never about arriving at the end, but being patient in the upwards spiral of growth and learning. I do still pray, though, that the times of bobbing back and forth between ignoring contemplation all together and diving in so much that I'm drowning in my own pride and pleasure at having 'arrived' at such spiritual heights, will grow fewer and farther between, and I can dwell in God's presence, not dependent on emotion or feeling, but with a still and quiet soul as Psalm 131:2 states. "Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me."