“Water is the softest and most yielding substance. Nothing is better than water, for overcoming the hard and rigid, because nothing can compete with it.”
Lao Tzu
Many people are hijacked by the rigidity of their minds.
- Thinking in categories and fixed ideas can be a great crutch for survival, as it creates clarity in a chaotic universe.
- But thinking too rigidly also has its negative consequences.
- Seeing the world in categories and separate boxes limits our perception, so we become stuck in our ideas of how things are, or supposed to be.
The universe is ever-changing, and most things, are more complex than our minds can comprehend.
- Therefore, a more fruitful approach to life, would be one that is flexible, tangible, and that enables us to flow along (like water).
“Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.”
Bruce Lee
When we observe the nature of water, we’ll discover that it’s extremely resilient to change, as water is able to take all kinds of different forms.
- We can pour water in a glass and it becomes the glass when it’s part of the ocean it waves.
- Depending on the outside temperature water changes its behavior; when it’s cooked it evaporates, and when it’s frozen it becomes solid.
- Thus, water survives many different circumstances by adaptation.
- The softness of water adds strength to living beings, because it makes them flexible, and therefore, more resilient to outside circumstances.
- In still water, the dust can settle so it becomes clear.
- Streaming water passes different places and sceneries, and nurtures the things that it encounters.
- But also, when we’d be contained, like water being kept in a jar, we’d just be still and be the jar, until our circumstances change.
If we compare life to a river, we could see its subtle twists and turns as small changes, a drastic change in course would represent a big change, and when it discharges in the ocean it would be death.
- We see that, no matter what happens, the river flows along with the changes of circumstances, adapting to different landscapes, and finding its way past obstructions without effort.
- Even its inevitable annihilation the river approaches without being troubled, without resistance, as it simply merges into something else.
- And, thus, we live life in a continuous flow, finding our ways around everything that crosses our path, not resisting even the most drastic of changes, including death.
Re-source: Resoften
to make or become soft again
Water is soft and flexible, but also has the power to erode the hardest materials like rock and metal.
- “Everyone knows that the soft and yielding overcomes the rigid and hard, but few can put this knowledge into practice.”
- To be like water, we need to know how we can overcome the hard by being soft.
Life is characterized by softness, and softness is strength.
- Soft things don’t break easily, because they can bend and yield, unlike the brittle and rigid.
- Even the hardest of rock can be overcome by the gentleness of water.
craving and resource from “Be Like Water” by Einzelgänger