There are two Essential Forces in the Taoish Way of being: Love as Attraction and Fear as Repulsion.
A force is an interaction, i.e., the energy dynamics between two entities/charges. As living beings, we need energy to sustain our life form; as intelligent beings, we encode and decode the energy dynamics inside and around us into intelligible information, knowledge, language, ideas, theories, concepts, so on and so forth; as sentient beings, we perceive and interpret the energy dynamics inside and around us as feelings and emotions, attitudes and opinions, qualities and values, morals and ethics, etc. Tracing the entangled, complicated and multiplex manifestations of the energy dynamics to the origin, I see two Essential Forces in constant play: Attraction and Repulsion.
In the Taoish Way, the Force of Attraction is Love; the Force of Repulsion is Fear.
Perceived like a pull or push when we interact without the world or within the Self, the two Essential Forces attract or repel in an on-going, ever-changing interplay. Every change breaks the previous balance and strives for a new equilibrium.
Love is not always good. Fear is not necessarily bad. They rise and fall in a dynamic balance derived from the Nature’s design: Love attracts to thrive; Fear repels to survive.
Example of the Love-Fear paradigm:
Living a mindful life is about understanding Love and Fear within the Self and with others, about reflecting on the integrity of the inside energy and outside expressions, and about cultivating the awareness of the Love-Fear imbalance and the ability to reach a new balance in life.
CHECK YOUR BALANCE.