Sustainable Cycles Aren't Always Good

Continuing on the thought of cycles, I had a bit of a revelation recently: sustainable cycles aren't always good. Like most revelations, it seems pretty obvious when you hear it, but it is kind of a big deal. 'Sustainability' is such a positive buzz word. It is just drenched with goodness and sunshine. But being sustainable isn't always positive.

Consider a person who abuses alcohol. He could spend months in a drunken stupor, decide to quit drinking and get back on track, then give up due to the stress and return to the binge drinking. This is a dangerous, sad, and generally negative cycle. At best, you could consider this a neutral process, since it involves an upward and downward process, but I would argue that it is more destructive than anything else, which makes it negative.

In a certain sense, all sustainable cycles are neutral, because everything needs to balance out in order to recreate itself. However, I think that sustainable cycles have net positive, negative, or neutral results. Sustainable cycles aren't always good, but they aren't always bad or neutral either.