A bow or a lyre keeps its shape because it is simultaneously in opposite directions. Heraclitus want to suggest that everything stable involves this state of tension between opposite processes. The entire cosmos forms a single process, and this processes involves all the opposites. We might say, life needs death to keep it going. In other fragments, he is fascinated by sleep.
Life seems to involve a sort of oscillation between full life and half death.
Because of this constant tension and oscillation between processes that actively oppose each other, Heraclitus sees the whole cosmos as in a state of constant war. This last fragment is an implicit criticism of Anaximander. Anaximander said that when the opposites destroyed or encroached on each other, this was unjust, and in order to maintain stability and order the injustice had to be rectified by the Unbounded. The Cosmic Fire Finally, fire. Heraclitus does not only compare the world as a whole to a fire, but he also thinks that fire in particular plays a vital role in the nature of the cosmos.