It’s very personal.
Life is such a sandbox sometimes; so many options for what to care about, and what to use as one’s gauges of ‘success’.
I think that people who say everything’s actually simple also tend to be people who hide within unexamined instinctual impulses as a way to avoid the menace of existential freedom.
No shame in that necessarily; but it’s the equivalent of asserting that pencils, books, and paper are really just kindling for building fires .
A: what are pencils and books made from?
B: wood. Trees.
A: and can you dispute the fact that wood is fuel for fire?
B: well, no. I wouldn’t dispute that; but that’s not all wood is for….
A: dude. You’re over-complicating things. Here. Pass me that Dostoevsky. It should keep this fire going for another 2 hours….
On the other hand, there’s a certain skillful way that we might relate to the imagination. Holding it lightly; but also not rejecting its offerings.
Neither worshipping it, nor oppressing and exiling it.
Inviting it to the table and giving it a hearing….Sometimes
As you say, Balance.