Hopefully you are in fine spirits this day.
We have a lot of ground to cover in this post. Before I do so, however, I need to let sensitive folks know that I am going to most likely offend or upset with this missive. I am going to take it upon myself to say what quite a few peoples are thinking but would never admit in polite society.
And so, without further ado, lets get to work.
Rise of the Grass Eaters.
The nation of Nippon (日本), otherwise known as the J-Land, is my second home. My name appears in the Kyoto registry, and can be found if one should visit the Kyoto local government office.
I spend a lot of time in Tokyo and the Kansai region, and I have many valuable and beloved friends and family living on the Island nation.
So it would make sense that I keep a close eye on the latest developments that transpire in the Land of the Rising Sun. And it seems that Soushoku Danshi (草食男子), or Grass Eating Men, is the talk of the town. In addition to a slew of English and Japanese language articles covering the phenomena, my buddies and I have had many manly discussions about who is or isn't a Grass Eater over bottles of beer and sake.'
According to Slate.com:
The Herbivore's Dilemma
Japan panics about the rise of "grass-eating men," who shun sex, don't spend money, and like taking walks.
By Alexandra Harney
Ryoma Igarashi likes going for long drives through the mountains, taking photographs of Buddhist temples and exploring old neighborhoods. He's just taken up gardening, growing radishes in a planter in his apartment. Until recently, Igarashi, a 27-year-old Japanese television presenter, would have been considered effeminate, even gay. Japanese men have long been expected to live like characters on Mad Men, chasing secretaries, drinking with the boys, and splurging on watches, golf, and new cars.
Today, Igarashi has a new identity (and plenty of company among young Japanese men) as one of the soushoku danshi—literally translated, "grass-eating boys." Named for their lack of interest in sex and their preference for quieter, less competitive lives, Japan's "herbivores" are provoking a national debate about how the country's economic stagnation since the early 1990s has altered men's behavior.
Newspapers, magazines, and television shows are newly fixated on the herbivores. "Have men gotten weaker?" was one theme of a recent TV talk show...
... In this age of bromance and metrosexuals, why all the fuss? The short answer is that grass-eating men are alarming because they are the nexus between two of the biggest challenges facing Japanese society: the declining birth rate and anemic consumption. Herbivores represent an unspoken rebellion against many of the masculine, materialist values associated with Japan's 1980s bubble economy. Media Shakers, a consulting company that is a subsidiary of Dentsu, the country's largest advertising agency, estimates that 60 percent of men in their early 20s and at least 42 percent of men aged 23 to 34 consider themselves grass-eating men. Partner Agent, a Japanese dating agency, found in a survey that 61 percent of unmarried men in their 30s identified themselves as herbivores. Of the 1,000 single men in their 20s and 30s polled by Lifenet, a Japanese life-insurance company, 75 percent described themselves as grass-eating men.
Japanese companies are worried that herbivorous boys aren't the status-conscious consumers their parents once were. They love to putter around the house. According to Media Shakers' research, they are more likely to want to spend time by themselves or with close friends, more likely to shop for things to decorate their homes, and more likely to buy little luxuries than big-ticket items. They prefer vacationing in Japan to venturing abroad. They're often close to their mothers and have female friends, but they're in no rush to get married themselves, according to Maki Fukasawa, the Japanese editor and columnist who coined the term in NB Online in 2006.
Grass-eating boys' commitment phobia is not the only thing that's worrying Japanese women. Unlike earlier generations of Japanese men, they prefer not to make the first move, they like to split the bill, and they're not particularly motivated by sex. "I spent the night at one guy's house, and nothing happened—we just went to sleep!" moaned one incredulous woman on a TV program devoted to herbivores. "It's like something's missing with them," said Yoko Yatsu, a 34-year-old housewife, in an interview. "If they were more normal, they'd be more interested in women. They'd at least want to talk to women."
Shigeru Sakai of Media Shakers suggests that grass-eating men don't pursue women because they are bad at expressing themselves. He attributes their poor communication skills to the fact that many grew up without siblings in households where both parents worked. "Because they had TVs, stereos and game consoles in their bedrooms, it became more common for them to shut themselves in their rooms when they got home and communicate less with their families, which left them with poor communication skills," he wrote in an e-mail. (Japan has rarely needed its men to have sex as much as it does now. Low birth rates, combined with a lack of immigration, have caused the country's population to shrink every year since 2005...)
Hmm... where to begin?
The article mentions a few of the key drivers that have influenced the Soushoku Danshi movement. Another reason might be that Japan is a brutally competitive and perfectionist society. Most children go to school six days a week. High school kids have to pass courses in advanced calculus and trigonometry, subjects that I didn't tackle until college.
My clique of friends from university (who are American, Japanese, and South Korean) and I have come to the consensus that American students can bullshit their way through high school, but really have to buckle down in college.
But in Asia, it's the exact opposite. Students in Asia have to study like crazy from elementary to high school and can only relax once they pass extremely difficult college entrance exams.
Even if one does manage to enter an elite university, he only has a short time period to relax. Because after he graduates, the pressure to enter the Salaryman lifestyle, which, as the article alludes to, could and often does lead to incredibly long workdays (my old roommate told me stories of working 14 hours in one day!), six days a week, forced participation in neverending after hours karaoke parties and socalizing, and so much alcohol consumption... it should be against the law!
Oh, and before I forget... there's also the occasional group trip to the neighborhood Soapland...
Just remember that DECADES of long, tedious, and back breaking work lie ahead for our young Grass Eating Man. That's a lot of pressure for a young buck to live with... and, while some people thrive in such settings, not every Japanese guy wants to lead such a life. If they have anything to say about it, they would naturally look to get off the treadmill at the earliest possible opportunity.
Like most men worldwide, Japanese men want the freedom and the flexibility to pursue their own happiness instead of working to make some else rich, or putting up with a ball-busting Oniyome (鬼嫁)demon wife when he gets home.
Nope... better for men in every country to Go Their Own Way.
Back to the Slate article:
... Japanese women are not taking the herbivores' indifference lightly. In response to the herbivorous boys' tepidity, "carnivorous girls" are taking matters into their own hands, pursuing men more aggressively. Also known as "hunters," these women could be seen as Japan's version of America's cougars.
While many Japanese women might disagree, Fukasawa sees grass-eating boys as a positive development for Japanese society. She notes that before World War II, herbivores were more common: Novelists such as Osamu Dazai and Soseki Natsume would have been considered grass-eating boys. But in the postwar economic boom, men became increasingly macho, increasingly hungry for products to mark their personal economic progress. Young Japanese men today are choosing to have less to prove.
I couldn't agree more. The way things are done in the J-Land serves only to rob many men of their time, their creativity, and their freedom. And, as more Japanese women (still a million times more feminine than 80% of their Western sisters) become more "manly", selfish, and demanding, many of our Grass Eaters are making a conscious decision to pursue their own goals and chase their own dreams. Marriage, on the other hand, comes dead last in their list of priorities.
And if left wing Minshunto makes good and encodes more Political Feminist public policy into Japanese law, then the MGTOW philosophy will only become more popular in the years to come.
If Japan (and other low birthrate nations, such as South Korea) decide to aggressively pursue feminist policies (which is doubtful, but anything can happen), then it will only insure its eventual depopulation because traditional patriarchal civilization is the only way a nation in such dire demographic straits can make a successful comeback.
Fatherhood and the Future of Civilization
From the Christian Post:
Will the world soon experience a return of patriarchy? That is the question raised by Phillip Longman in the March/April 2006 issue of Foreign Policy.
Close
The magazine's cover features a rather stunning headline: "Why Men Rule – and Conservatives Will Inherit the Earth." That headline would be surprising in almost any contemporary periodical, but it is especially significant that this article should appear in the pages of Foreign Policy, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The publication of this article set a good many heads to spinning.
Phillip Longman is Bernard L Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. He is a well-respected author and researcher, whose books have included The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do about It (2004). In his previous works, Longman has projected how falling birthrates throughout advanced societies will lead to financial, political, social, and demographic decline.
In this article, he pressed his argument to the next stage – announcing the return of patriarchy – the concept of male leadership – as essential to a recovery of higher birthrates and reproduction.
"With the number of human beings having increased more than sixfold in the past 200 years, the modern mind simply assumes that men and women, no matter how estranged, will always breed enough children to grow the population – at least until plague or starvation sets in," Longman explains.
"Yet, for more than a generation now, well-fed, healthy, peaceful populations around the world have been producing too few children to avoid population decline. That is true even though dramatic improvements in infant and child mortality mean that far fewer children are needed today (only about 2.1 per woman in modern societies) to avoid population loss. Birthrates are falling far below replacement levels in one country after the next – from China, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, to Canada, the Caribbean, all of Europe, Russia, and even parts of the Middle East."
Throughout human history, a persistent fall in birthrates has served as a harbinger of cultural decline and a warning of cultural collapse. The reasons for this are many, but center in the fact that the cause of falling birthrates is often a loss of social cohesion and confidence and the effect of falling reproduction rates is a decline in economic prosperity and erosion of the social structure.
Put simply, a significant fall in birthrates means that, in the next generation, there will be fewer workers, parents, consumers, and contributors to the common welfare. As societies age, a greater percentage of the population tends toward the older end of the age spectrum – representing greater dependency and less economic contribution...
... Longman argues that the return of patriarchy is almost assured, given the social crisis that will be produced by a catastrophic fall in birthrates.
"Patriarchy does not simply mean that men rule," Longman explains. "Indeed, it is a particular value system that not only requires men to marry but to marry a woman of proper station. It competes with many other male visions of the good life, and for that reason alone is prone to come in cycles."
Longman understands the simple fact that a great deal of cultural capital is required in order to encourage young men to marry and men of all ages to fulfill responsibilities as husbands and fathers. The normative picture of the "good life" for men, at least as presented in the dominant media culture, does not include the comprehensive responsibilities of fatherhood. When men are not stigmatized for failure to be faithful as husbands and fathers, young men will take marriage and parenthood with little significance, as many will avoid marriage and fatherhood altogether...
Now at this stage, Dear Reader, I will have to disagree with Mr. Longman on a very important point.
The biggest fallacy that I see when I read about marriage and family issues is that men are behaving "irresponsibly", or that men are being allowed to "abandon" their marital and familial responsibilities.
NOTHING COULD BE FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH.
Churches don't get it... this is why more men are leaving churches.
Institutions don't get it... this is why more men are turning their backs on institutions.
Governments don't get it... this is why more men are losing confidence in government.
MEN HAVE NOT ABANDONED ANYTHING. SOCIETY AT LARGE HAS ABANDONED MEN!
In the American case... Congress, the Supreme Court [a][b], and the Executive Branch have set up laws, regulations, and legal precedents that create a complex web of feminist public policy that has neutered marriage, family, and male headship into oblivion.
Men in this country do not have any legal rights when it comes to their marriages and their families. They only have obligations and liabilities.
Once again, it doesn't take rocket science to understand that when one faces physical imprisonment or financial slavery if one marries or has a family, then the logical choice for men is to minimize their exposure by any means necessary. And at any time, a "Patriarchal" man who attempts to live the life that many Conservative types expect him to live can be PUT OUT OF HIS HOME AND REMOVED FROM HIS FAMILY ANY TIME HIS WIFE DESIRES, FOR ANY REASON AT ALL. AND WHEN THAT HAPPENS, THE SAME PEOPLE THAT ENCOURAGED HIM TO "DO THE RIGHT THING" WILL BLAME HIM FOR "ABANDONING HIS FAMILY".
Individuals are compelled, on pain of financial and physical ruination, to guide their conduct according to the letter of the law. And Law, in partnership with Custom, has combined to eliminate Patriarchy in the good ol' USA. And the total lack of understanding of this crucial point on the part of churches, institutions, and academia is profoundly disturbing. It's no wonder than men are leaving these institutions, and going their own way in ever increasing numbers!
When the laws and the customs change to protect, honor, and respect men and male headship, then you will have it in abundance. Keep our current Matriarchal system in place, and male headship will flee for greener pastures.
Back to the Christian Post:
To some extent, the statistics tell the story. Almost twenty percent of women born in the late 1950s are nearing the end of their reproductive lives without ever having had children. Longman's assessment is blunt: "The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and 70s, will have no genetic legacy."
Beyond this, the falling birthrate contributes to many other social ills. "Falling fertility is also responsible for many financial and economic problems that dominate today's headlines," Longman asserts. "The long-term financing of social security schemes, private pension plans, and health-care systems has little to do with people living longer. . . . Instead, the falling ratio of workers to retirees is overwhelmingly caused by workers who were never born."
The effects within the society are psychological as well as demographic, political, and financial. As Longman understands, declining birthrates can also affect what he calls "national temperament." He attributes the fact that the American voting population has become more conservative in recent years to anxiety over falling birthrates. Beyond this, we must now add the fact that millions of voters, who would have been raised by more liberal parents, were simply never born...
... A truly Christian response to this argument must go further than cultural concerns alone can sustain. In the biblical vision, patriarchs establish a trans-generational vision for their families, looking to generations beyond with the promise that the father will give himself to the task of fatherhood and leadership in order to perpetuate the promise and establish the line.
Beyond this, Christians should understand that the Bible reveals a form of patriarchy as the norm – with men called to lead within the marital union and the family, as well as the church.
... His verdict is clear – societies that follow a patriarchal pattern tend to reproduce at a higher rate and advance, while those who devalue the role and responsibilities of men as fathers find themselves in decline.
Most of us know by now that the way of political feminism is the way of death, and that more feminism leads to lower birthrates, and more men breaking away to seek their own rewards as their traditional rights are stripped away in order to meet political feminist objectives.
However, I would also like to point out that, in America at least, the Christian Church, as a whole, has done a miserable job in protecting the rights of men that were entrusted to it long ages ago.
I don't see correct and hard hitting sermons, publications, and speeches against the totality of feminism and feminist public policy being produced by the Churches, except to oppose limited issues such as abortion. I don't see religious organizations suing to have political feminist public policy overturned. I don't see the Religious Right, or any other spiritual organization, lobbying members of Congress to have Patriarchy and Male Headship restored to this country.
As a matter of fact, I hardly hear any religious group, with the exception of Islamic organizations and underground Christian groups, challenging the full breadth of political feminist ideology.
The sad truth is that most mainstream religious groups sold out to political feminism a long time ago, and are afraid to examine the totality of this hate movement in a bold, public, and political fashion. Worst of all, they fail to uphold their own body of sacred scripture and knowledge as they bow down to feminist soul-controllers when it comes to the rights of men, marriage, and family life.
One of my biggest beefs with most religious groups today (and one of the main reasons why I became a Truthseeker some three odd years ago) is that they don't practice or support the ideals that they preach.
With that said, let's transition to our last topic of the day...
The defense of Tiger Woods from a Men's Rights Perspective.
Tiger Woods, one of the most exceptional golfers to ever live, posted the following on his website:
Tiger Woods taking hiatus from golf
By Tiger Woods
I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children. I want to say again to everyone that I am profoundly sorry and that I ask forgiveness. It may not be possible to repair the damage I've done, but I want to do my best to try.
I would like to ask everyone, including my fans, the good people at my foundation, business partners, the PGA Tour, and my fellow competitors, for their understanding. What's most important now is that my family has the time, privacy, and safe haven we will need for personal healing.
After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person.
Again, I ask for privacy for my family and I am especially grateful for all those who have offered compassion and concern during this difficult period.
At this juncture, I am going to do something that many on the internet and blogosphere have not done, and that is to defend the Tiger.
In many ways, I can relate to Mr. Woods. He and I are of the same generation, we are both multi-racial individuals trying to excel in our chosen paths, and we are both married guys trying to make it in a society that discourages marriage on a multitude of levels.
Unlike me, the Tiger has a few billion more dollars in the bank than I do, and that can certainly lead to temptation...
But let me flesh out my argument.
Marriage in America is really hard to do. The culture is against you. The laws are stacked against you. There is no real understanding, or acknowledgment, about what makes men tick. Marriage in this country, in other words, is a hazardous proposition that is best avoided at the present time, except by the ignorant or the insane (like me).
Now did Tiger mess up? Sure he did.
I don't think he handled his business in a skillful way, nor do I think he planned on being exposed like he has. He probably thought shit was all good until that fateful day when he wrecked his SUV into a tree.
One would think that he would have played it smarter... confined his peccadilloes to a very small number of highly trusted confidants, and would have known better than to have someone potentially take naked pictures of him!
Also, it seems that he failed to consider the impact of his actions upon his wife, children, and fanbase. As the head of his household, this is a weighty obligation indeed, and I have to call him out for that.
But in any event, it is what it is. He was doing too much, and it finally caught up with him.
But there is much more to this story than meets the eye. My argument is that there are structural inconsistencies in our society that lead people to do crazy things like the Tiger.
I have to agree somewhat with Hugh Heffner's take on Tigergate:
Hugh Hefner wasn't surprised one bit when he heard about allegations of Tiger Woods cheating on his wife.
"I think the only surprise in it, quite frankly, is that anybody would be surprised," the Playboy mogul tells me exclusively. "If you're a good-looking guy and young and healthy, the notion that there would be something else going on, well, marriage is just a convenience.
"It's very nice for raising kids," he adds, "but the notion that monogamy lasts forever is a wish!..."
I'll have to take some issue with Heff's comments by saying that for some people, monogamous marriage is right and proper. And I would much prefer a monogamous marriage culture to no marriage culture at all.
After all, our current Matriarchal utopia, and the damage it is doing to our babies is enough evidence that marriage is an honorable institution in and of itself that is worth preserving.
However, in my opinion, it is our modern lack of flexibility, as well as a profound ignorance of what makes men tick, that is the real problem.
For example, check out the following article from the Huffington Post:
Jay Michaelson
It's Not Just Tiger: Monogamous Marriage Is An Anomaly
Let the clucking begin. As the tabloids pile on the revelations about our falling star, Tiger Woods, pundits have begun the predictable and proverbial shaking of heads, clucking of tongues, and various forms of bemoaning. Are none of our heroes pure anymore? Or, conversely, is our celebrity culture so ravenous for scandal that there is no privacy left?
Et cetera, et cetera.
But what's the takeaway from all this? We've been through so many celebrity-affair scandals (does anyone remember Eliot Spitzer?) -- haven't we learned anything?
(And, Dear Readers, don't forget David Letterman's indecent confessions)
... How about this one: that the modern institution of marriage, so ardently fought-over by activists across the country, is a historical anomaly that has never been taken seriously in the past, and is unlikely to work in the future. It's a flawed model, and it's not worth defending - because it never really existed, apart from an ideal.
Truly traditional marriage, after all, is polygamy. This is what the Bible instructs, and it's been the dominant familial arrangement in the Western world for longer than any other form, including nuclear-family monogamy. Kings had their concubines, noblemen had their mistresses and kept women, and the rest of us - well, we had the world's oldest profession. None of these were exactly God's word, but they were understood to be part of life.
Indeed, maybe we forget how widespread prostitution really was for most of our history, and how even today, sex is Internet's #1 business and how an estimated 700,000 American men pay women for sex every year. This is not an innovation of our degraded age. It was understood - in the Bible, in the Talmud, in Protestant Europe, in colonial America - that married men would visit prostitutes. And while this may have been a sin, it was everyone's sin - and not a particularly serious one.
What changed all this was, ironically, feminism. The first feminists weren't bra-burning radicals: they were pious scolds, who in late 19th century America mobilized for purifying American manhood. They cleaned out the brothels and closed the pubs - feminists were the first prohibitionists. What had for hundreds of years been the common practice of men of all social classes became a great vice to be eradicated...
... Twentieth century feminism added another layer of condemnation: after all, why should men be allowed to philander while women were expected to remain faithful and stand by their (abusive, cheating) men no matter what? Why are promiscuous men heroes, and promiscuous women sluts? Women aren't slaves, feminism taught us, and men need to respect them as equal partners in marriage. Infidelity had been a religious sin - now it was a secular one as well.
So here we are, 2010 upon us, and still trying to live up to a hopeless monogamous ideal that had never been so strictly upheld before - and is not helping anybody...
There is a lot of painful truth here. Long time readers know that I am for a "polygamous option", where a man could take a set number of women as wives.
I am also for the legalization of prostitution, something I speak about here.
The cold truth is that "Conservatives" have it ass backwards most of the time when they "defend marriage." What they are really doing is defending a chivalrous and zombified institution formerly known as marriage. They intend for men to shoulder crap-tons of responsibility, while at the same time, denying men any reasonable and sustainable way of dealing with their sexual drives, which are much more voracious than those of women, not to mention championing the outdated Victorian idea of putting women up on ivory pedestals just because they have a vagina.
Now here is where I begin to defend Tiger.
We really don't know what exactly was going on in the Woods household. But, it is very possible that sexual relations between himself and his wife dried up or was insufficient to meet the needs of a world class athlete. In the lives of ordinary married men, this happens quite a bit.
It's kinda hard to have those all day Kamasutra sex sessions when a young child is present in the home. It's a little difficult to have your honey walking around in suggestive lingerie when she is trying to do the laundry. Perhaps your wife has a major presentation due next week, and she comes home from work late at night exhausted. And understandably, your all night sexfest = FUBAR.
Shit happens.
So... if your only legal wife decides (remember gents: her body, her choice!) to stop giving up the Nappy Dugout, what do you do?
You are not a woman. You are a man who needs sexual stimulation. This isn't optional... this is a hardwired need.
Well... you could become an ascetic monk and use your sexual energy to open your Kundalini energy system through intense meditation or...
Download a crap ton of internet porn and break out the tissues or...
Go cold turkey and suppress your inherent desires or...
Take up a new hobby to burn off the excess energy or...
Do stupid shit like have 10 mistresses so they can tell everyone they know about your personal business, blow big money on strippers, start drinking heavily, or put your profile on Craigslist.
You get the idea. Men denied satisfaction on a consistent and regular basis tend to do crazy things in order to cope.
Traditionally, men have had two outlets for their desires that at the same time preserved a relatively stable marriage culture. These two systems are prostitution and polygamous marriage.
Both of these are illegal today in the vast majority of the United States.
So what's a man to do?
Tiger, Letterman, and Eliot Spitzer have shown us that the rich and powerful grapple with these issues just like the average married man does. And in each case, the final decision was to go out and get them some Strange.
And many marriages are destroyed because our society does not deal with these very real issues in a skillful and realistic manner. Instead, we have a Matriarchal system of double standards, Catch 22's, and Damned-if-you-do, Damned-if-you-don't-isms. If we want to really protect and preserve marriage in the years to come, then we need to rethink what marriage is about, and actually understand that men have needs too, just as women do. We've taken into account what women want, but we have yet to acknowledge what men want.
This is not a sustainable situation, and we need to get it right for ourselves, for our children, for our nation, and our world.
Bottom line: While I am disappointed that Mr. Woods handled his business in such a sloppy manner, I can understand where he's coming from. He came clean, him and his woman are going to hopefully work it out, and they'll move on with life. But, in my opinion, this case demonstrates the need for men to consider our own interests for a change, and allow men who do need more than one woman to take care of their needs in the least socially disruptive manner possible.
Conclusion.
It remains to be seen if Tiger can resurrect his career, his image, and his marriage. But I can't help but think: what if his wife had some knowledge of his doings... and what if she was down with that? Does she truly understand her man more than the army of media types telling all of their personal business 24-7? If so, then she is ahead of the curve.
I said it once, and I'll say it again... our legal, religious, and social systems need to be changed so that the rights, desires, and wishes of men are respected, so long as these rights and desires do not violate the rights of others. Unless this happens, society, economy, liberty and spirituality will all continue to degrade and implode.
We all love to look out for the children, and we bend over backwards to enforce feminist public policy... but what about the men? When do we get what the fuck we want?
From Grass Eating men, sagging birthrates, to the latest celebrity sex scandal, it is becoming apparent that Men have judged our current social constructs, and found them wanting. Man is the spark, the thumos, the creative and driving force on this planet. But in many places, Man is in chains. He is being artificially constrained. And he is making decisions, some wise, others damn foolish, in an attempt to find his equilibrium.
No matter where we look, be it government, finance, marriage or career life, the bulk of men are not being served. Their needs are not being met, and their happiness is not being considered. And in response, we are seeing once vibrant institutions imploding as vast numbers of men decide to seek their own path.
If the way of political feminism is death, then the way of enlightened manliness will bring life.
Until these sorely needed changes are made, then it is better for Men to Go Their Own Way. Unfortunately, the social order will suffer in direct proportion.
Balance and a happy mean is needed.
Gyo.