I lost a friend over a protest I did not attend.

Not because I mocked the cause. Not because I stood on the other side of the street with a rival sign. I simply would not go. I will not outsource my conscience to a crowd, even a righteous-feeling one. The invitation was not really “come think with us.” It was “come be counted.” When I said no, the warmth left the friendship the way air leaves a room. No fight. Just a quieter calendar.

That is the social tax of the middle path. You are still in the photograph. You are no longer in the story. The history that you shared becomes a memory rather than something to fight for. Least of all for them to fight themselves. You simple walk away and might be remembered fondly after years of being exiled. But you will rarely be welcomed back. The question though, was that a friendship? Or was it someone pushing their values on you in hopes to recruit for their cause?

Taoism has been honest about this for a long time. The Tao Te Ching does not sell belonging. Chapter 5 says heaven and earth are like a bellows—empty, inexhaustible—and then cuts the noise: “Much talk leads to exhaustion. Better to hold the center.” Chapter 40 is colder still: “Reversal is the movement of the Tao.” Push a thing to an extreme and it becomes its opposite. Chapter 20 sounds like a man who has already paid the bill I paid: the crowd is bright and certain; he looks dull, leftover, “alone and different,” fed by the source instead of the room.

The cost is real. The long run is why I keep paying it. A pole gives you instant company and a future crash. The center gives you fewer rooms and a self that is still yours when the weather changes. However the price is steep and harsh, but it is worth it in the end.

I had to learn that in the news, too. For years I treated political journalism like weather I had to stand in. Over the last thirty years the craft has drifted from “here is what we can show” toward “here is which team you must join.” Heat outruns verification. A lie will travel the globe while the truth puts its pants on. I finally did a detox: no cable panels, no rage-headlines for the past week, no stacking five versions of the same panic. The silence felt like withdrawal. It was painful, feeling like I was cutting myself off from a lifeline I know I do not need. It was also the first time in a long while my judgment belonged to me again.

You do not have to squint to see the pattern. In January 2019, a short clip of Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann facing Native American activist Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial became a national morality play. Major outlets framed a MAGA-hatted teenager as the aggressor harassing an elder. Fuller video showed a messier scene: students waiting for a bus, taunts from another group, Phillips walking into the cluster. Sandmann stood still and smiled. That was enough. The Washington Post, CNN, and NBC later settled defamation claims. The first story had already done its work. Extremes do not need the article to stay true. They need it to stay useful. In the end Nick Sandmann had his life ruined for no good reason, just click-bait and the journalists need to inspire their side into a frenzy. They had full access to the longer version of the video but chose to cut it to fit a narrative. That isn’t journalism, that is dishonesty with a headline.

I am not asking you to become numb. I am asking you not to let a mob—or a newsroom performing like one—overwhelm your nervous system. There is no need to follow the middle path, but I have found that while lonely it is a better way to live. No whipped up frenzy, no extremes yelling for your attention. Sadly, it also means no friends that live in their extremes. But that is their choice, you have your own to make.

If you have ADHD as I do, “empty your mind” is a cruel instruction. Try this instead. Sit or stand. Phone in another room. Two hands on the belly. Breathe in for four, out for six, for four minutes. When the mind bolts toward the protest you skipped or the headline you should answer, do not wrestle it. Name it—“campaigning”—and return to the bellows. You are not trying to win stillness. You are practicing return. That is holding the center in a body that does not do straight lines. If sitting still is not possible, try walking meditation. Even in the middle of the city you can find pockets of calm. Parks, walking trails, or even an open plaza free from distractions can do the trick. Just don’t try this in Times Square.

The moderate middle is shrinking because it does not trend. That does not mean it is empty. It is more necessary than ever, or at least it feels that way. I hope for a day when calmer heads prevail but I fear that it won’t happen in my lifetime.

If you have felt this loneliness—the quiet after you would not join the pile-on, the sense that there is no room left between banners—leave a post. Tell the truth about what it cost. If you want to help start a small community of like-minded centrists, people who can steelman a cause without becoming the mob, say so. Not a new Cathedral of the Unaligned. Just a place where the center is allowed to speak freely without the constant screaming of the extremes.

The Way does not need a megaphone. It does need a few of us willing to hold it when the street gets loud. It needs the person despite the crowds yelling at them to join them or perish continues to walk the middle path.