This is a piece of an essay published earlier this month in NPR’s series “This I Believe.” The author is Nobel Prize winning chemist Roald Hoffmann.

“The middle is not static… my psychological middle as well as the chemical equilibrium. I like that. Yes, of course I also want stability. But I believe that extreme positions — the things you start out with in a chemical reaction, the things you finish with (all people A, bad, all people B, good; no taxes at all, taxed to death) — all of these are impractical, unnatural, boring: the refuge of people who never want to change. The world is not simple, though God knows political forces on every side want to make it so. I like the tense middle and I am grateful for a life that offers me the potential for change.”

Thanks for the pointer Kirk!

Read the rest here: NPR : The Tense Middle