Before his awakening, Siddhārtha Gautama lived both extremes: a prince’s indulgence and an ascetic’s near-starvation. Neither brought freedom. In his first sermon at Sarnath he taught the middle way between sensual excess and self-mortification, leading to the Noble Eightfold Path. The idea resonates with Aristotle’s golden mean, where virtue sits between excess and deficiency - courage between recklessness and cowardice. The middle way is not a lukewarm compromise; it is balance born of insight. In an age of extremes, in politics, online and in our own habits, finding it remains a radical act.