Every engagement with the forces of dissolution carries a risk of absorption. The risk increases with the intensity of the participation and with the degree of identification. The differentiated individual therefore establishes clear limits. He determines in advance how far he will enter a given domain and under what conditions he will withdraw. Those limits are not arbitrary. They are set by the permanent standard of the center.
Without such limits the rider becomes the ridden. The techniques of the age, the opportunities it offers, the very energy of its acceleration begin to dictate the direction of the life. The man who once intended to use those forces finds that his days, his attention, and finally his orientation have been taken over by them. The process is gradual and often invisible until it is advanced.
The limit is maintained through regular return to the interior position. After periods of necessary engagement the man recovers the distance. He examines the effects of the participation on his clarity and on his capacity for higher discrimination. Where the effects are corrosive he reduces or redirects the engagement. This examination is part of the active stance.
Young men who lack the limit either burn out in total immersion or retreat into a purity that leaves them ineffective. The correct path is measured participation. The measure is the preservation of the type. Everything that threatens that preservation is subject to reduction or refusal, regardless of the immediate advantage it appears to offer.