Flow

Keep the Direction, Change the Course

To my descendants,

There is one idea that I have become increasingly interested in as I grow older. It is the idea of flow. When I speak of flow, I am thinking first of water. A stream. A river. Rain travelling down a mountain. Water finding its way through a landscape.

Laozi repeatedly uses water because water possesses an extraordinary character. It is soft. It does not appear aggressive. It does not insist upon occupying the highest position. In fact, it does almost exactly the opposite. It moves downwards. It enters the valleys. It gathers in the low places. And precisely because it goes towards the low places, it eventually becomes capable of benefiting an enormous number of things.

Laozi says: 「上善若水。水善利万物而不争。」 The highest goodness is like water. Water benefits the myriad things without contending. That is an extraordinary observation. Water does not stand upon the mountain demanding that everything come upwards to receive it. It flows down. And as it flows down, it reaches forests. Villages. Fields. Animals. People. Cities. Agriculture. Eventually many streams become rivers, and rivers become great bodies of water.

So there is already an ethical idea inside the image: What is high should sometimes know how to come down. 

Flow Towards Others

Suppose you possess a great deal of knowledge. You may have spent thirty years understanding a subject. Perhaps you understand philosophy. Science. Architecture. Technology. Medicine. History. Law. Art. Whatever it may be. You can keep that knowledge at a very high intellectual level. You can use complicated vocabulary. Technical language. Specialised terminology. You may speak in a manner that demonstrates your education.

But perhaps very few people can understand you. Then what good is all that knowledge to the larger world? It remains on the mountain. A great teacher, I think, should be able to do something else. He takes something difficult and makes it understandable. He does not necessarily reduce its depth. He reduces the unnecessary difficulty of reaching it.

This distinction is important. Do not make an idea simplistic.
Make a difficult idea simple enough to enter. That is very different. Great knowledge may originate high in the mountain. But great teaching knows how to flow towards the plain. 

I increasingly think of this as a form of compassion. If I understand something and want others to benefit from it, then I should make some effort to reach them. I should not always demand that they climb all the way towards me. Sometimes I must flow towards them. 

The River Goes Down

There is therefore something interesting about the downward direction of water. Human beings normally want to rise. Higher position. Higher income. Higher rank. Higher education. Higher status. Higher authority. Higher recognition. There is nothing inherently wrong with improving oneself.

But Laozi notices something that appears almost opposite to ordinary ambition. Water seeks the low place. And Laozi says: 「处众人之所恶，故几于道。」 It dwells in places that people generally dislike, and therefore comes close to the Dao. There is humility in this. The river does not require elevation in order to possess power. The sea is lower than the rivers, yet all the rivers eventually flow towards it.

Laozi says elsewhere: 「江海所以能为百谷王者，以其善下之。」 The rivers and seas become the gathering place of the hundred valleys because they are good at placing themselves below them. This gives us another paradox: By being lower, the sea becomes greater. It can receive because it does not insist upon being above. It becomes vast because it has room.

This connects with what I wrote earlier about 留白 — leaving space. To receive, one needs some emptiness. To learn, one needs some uncertainty. To listen, one must stop speaking occasionally. To lead people, one must sometimes allow other people to stand. To become the sea, perhaps one must first learn not always to be the mountain. 

A River Has a Direction, But Not a Fixed Shape

But there is another characteristic of rivers that I think is equally important. A river has a general direction. Water moves according to gravity towards lower hydraulic potential. Broadly speaking, the river is going somewhere. Down the valley. Across the plain. Towards a lake. Towards another river. Towards the sea. But although the direction may be clear, the exact route is not fixed forever.

This is where the metaphor becomes much more interesting. The river bends. It meanders. It encounters harder rock. Softer soil. Vegetation. Sediment. A fallen tree. A flood. A dry period. Changing rainfall. Changing quantities of water and sediment. The river responds. Its shape changes. Its banks move. Its channel migrates.

We learn that for meandering rivers, water erodes the outside of bends while slower water deposits sediment on the inside, gradually altering the shape and position of the channel. So the river is not merely flowing through the landscape. There is an interaction. The landscape changes the river. The river also changes the landscape. This is much closer to life. 

Keep the Direction, Change the Course

This gives me one of the principles I most want you to remember: Have direction without becoming imprisoned by the route. Know roughly where you want to go. Know your values. Know what matters. But do not assume that the exact path you imagined at twenty must remain the correct path at forty, sixty or eighty.

Conditions change. Technology changes. Society changes. People change. You change. What was once the best road may become blocked. Another road may open. So ask: Is my destination still meaningful? If yes, perhaps the route can change.

This is very different from having no direction at all. A leaf floating randomly upon water is not what I mean by flow. That is drift. Flow has responsiveness. Drift has no intention. I would therefore say: Flow is not living without direction.

Flow is maintaining direction without demanding a fixed path.

Principles Can Remain While Methods Change

This connects with something I wrote earlier: Hold tightly to principles.
Hold methods more lightly. Perhaps honesty remains important throughout your life. But how honesty is expressed may change. Perhaps learning remains important. But how you learn changes with technology. Perhaps you remain committed to photography. But the camera changes. Film becomes digital. Digital photography encounters computational photography.

Then artificial intelligence changes image-making again. If you insist that the only legitimate method is the method you learnt forty years ago, you may no longer be protecting photography. You may merely be protecting habit. So the river teaches: Keep the direction.
Change the shape where necessary.  

The Meander 

A river meanders. This is very beautiful. It does not necessarily travel from Point A to Point B in a perfectly straight line. It curves. Sometimes enormously. At first this might appear inefficient. Why not simply travel straight towards the destination? But the river is responding to real conditions. Terrain. Slope. Sediment. Energy. Resistance.

The easiest sustainable path today may not be a straight line. Life is similar. People often imagine success as a straight line: School. University. Career. Promotion. Marriage. House. Money. Retirement. But few real lives are so geometrically neat. Someone changes profession. Someone fails. Someone becomes ill. Someone moves country. Someone discovers another talent. Someone loses a job. Someone meets an unexpected teacher. Someone begins writing at sixty. Someone finds his real vocation at forty.

Life meanders. That does not necessarily mean the life is lost. Sometimes the meander is how the river must move through the terrain that actually exists.  But Even the Meander Changes And there is something even more interesting. A meander does not remain unchanged forever.

As the outside of a river bend erodes and material accumulates elsewhere, the bend can migrate. Eventually two neighbouring parts of a meander may approach one another. During sufficiently strong flow, the river may break through the narrow neck. Suddenly the old long curve is abandoned. The water follows the shorter route.

Geomorphologists call this a meander cutoff. USGS studies document precisely such processes, including cases where high flows progressively cut through a meander neck and establish a shorter channel. I find this a wonderful metaphor for learning.

For years, perhaps you do something in a complicated way. You make a large intellectual meander. You try. Fail. Experiment. Read. Think. Go around. Then suddenly you understand. A shortcut appears.

What previously required ten steps can now be done in three. The old meander was not necessarily wasted. It was part of how you arrived at the understanding that allowed a more direct route to emerge. 

This is what mastery often looks like.

The Master Appears Simple

A beginner often makes things complicated. The master often makes things appear simple. But the simplicity of the master is not the simplicity of ignorance. It is simplicity after complexity has been understood.

The master has travelled the meander. That is why he eventually knows where the cutoff is. This is why great writing can appear simple. Great photography can appear simple. Great architecture can appear simple. Great teaching can appear simple. The observer says: “That looks easy.” Yes. It looks easy now. What you cannot see are the decades through which the river found its course.

 Change Can Be Gradual

Another thing I like about a river is that much of its transformation is gradual. A little erosion. A little deposition. A small shift of the bank. Another flood. Another season. A bend moves slightly. Year after year. Decade after decade. Eventually the map must be redrawn. This is how character often changes. Not through one enormous revelation. But through small repeated adjustments. A little more patience. A little less anger. A little more knowledge. A little greater discipline. One mistake understood. One habit corrected. One relationship improved. One assumption abandoned. One new skill acquired.

The individual changes almost imperceptibly. Then twenty years later, he is a different person. The river did not announce its transformation. It simply continued flowing. 

Sometimes Change Is Sudden

But rivers also teach us that change is not always gradual. A flood can produce rapid alterations. Channels can be cut off. Banks collapse. New courses may establish themselves.

A process that might otherwise have taken decades can suddenly accelerate under extreme conditions. Floods producing significant meander growth and new cutoff channels. Life is also like this. Most change is gradual. Then something happens. A death. A marriage. A birth. An illness. A war. A financial crisis. A technological revolution. A chance meeting. A sudden opportunity. The whole course changes.

That is where the earlier idea of 天时 becomes relevant. The larger conditions change. Your previous channel may no longer function. Now adaptation becomes essential. 

Do Not Worship Your Old Course

This is important. Just because you have travelled along one course for thirty years does not mean you must continue along exactly the same course forever. The river does not say: “I have always turned left here, therefore I must turn left here for eternity.”

Conditions change. If an opening develops elsewhere, water responds. Human beings can become prisoners of their previous success. “This method made me successful.” Yes. At that time. In that place. Under those circumstances. But ask: Does it still work? This is contemplation and reflection again. Do not abandon principles too easily.

But do not worship methods merely because they once succeeded.  Flow Is Accommodation I therefore understand flow partly as accommodation. Not surrender. Accommodation. There is a difference. When water meets a stone, it may go around it. That does not mean the stone defeated the river. The river simply recognises that smashing directly into the stone may not be the most intelligent expenditure of energy.

This is extremely relevant in human relationships. You meet someone with a different temperament. Why must he become exactly like you? Perhaps adjust your communication. You work in another country. Why must everyone there operate according to the habits of your own country? Observe. Learn. Adapt. You become older. Perhaps the body changes. Why insist on behaving exactly as you did at twenty?

Adjust. The direction of life can continue even though its form changes. 

Adaptation Is Not Weakness

People sometimes think: “If I change because circumstances change, I am weak.” Not necessarily. Rigidity is not always strength. Earlier we spoke about buildings. A structure capable of accommodating certain movements may survive forces that would damage a completely brittle system. 

The same principle applies here. Water changes shape constantly. Yet water does not lose itself. It enters a cup. It takes the shape of the cup. It enters a river. It takes the shape of the channel. It becomes rain. Mist. Ice. Steam. Yet something of its nature continues. This suggests another principle: Be flexible in form while remaining clear in essence. 

Laozi — Softness Overcomes Hardness

Laozi writes: 「天下莫柔弱于水，而攻坚强者莫之能胜。」 Nothing under heaven is softer or weaker than water, yet in overcoming what is hard and strong, nothing surpasses it. This is one of the great paradoxes of Daoism. Soft does not necessarily mean powerless. Hard does not necessarily mean strong.

The hard thing may crack. The soft thing may endure. Water yields moment by moment. Yet over time it reshapes landscapes. Classical commentary on Laozi's water metaphor similarly emphasises that water can accommodate different forms while remaining water. That idea appeals to me very much. 

Change shape. Do not unnecessarily lose nature. 

Flow Is Not Following the Crowd

But I want to make something very clear. When I say: “Go with the flow,” I do not mean: “Follow everybody.” Society itself can flow in a foolish direction. Crowds can be wrong. Fashion can be wrong. Political movements can be wrong. Popular opinion can be wrong. The river follows terrain, not popularity. So flow requires intelligence.

Ask: What are the actual conditions? Where is the real resistance? Where is the opening? What can be adapted? What must remain? Sometimes wisdom says: Flow around. Sometimes: Wait. Sometimes: Go another way. And sometimes: Stand firm. This is why flow must always be accompanied by judgement. 

Necessary Resistance and Unnecessary Resistance

There are things worth resisting. Injustice. Dishonesty. Cruelty. Corruption. Violation of fundamental values. I would never use Daoism as an excuse to say: “Everything is flowing, therefore accept everything.” No.

The better question is: Is this resistance necessary? Sometimes we are not defending a principle. We are defending our pride. Someone proposes another method. We resist because it was not our idea. Someone criticises us. We resist because we dislike being corrected. 

Circumstances change. We resist because we dislike uncertainty. That creates wasted energy. So learn to distinguish: principled resistance from ego resistance. One may be necessary. The other is often exhausting.

 Flow Is the Reduction of Wasted Effort

This leads me towards another understanding of flow. Flow does not necessarily mean using no effort. It means reducing unnecessary effort. Imagine two people trying to move through the same situation. One fights every condition. The other observes. He sees what cannot easily be changed. He sees what can be changed. He finds the opening.

He applies effort there. The second person may appear to accomplish things effortlessly. But perhaps what he really possesses is better understanding. This is why intelligence can look like ease. The person is not necessarily stronger. He simply knows where to apply strength.

 Zhuangzi's Cook Ding

This is exactly why I love the story of Cook Ding (庖丁) in Zhuangzi. At the beginning, Cook Ding saw simply an entire ox. After years of practice, his perception changed. He stopped attacking the animal as an undifferentiated mass. He understood its structure. The joints. The spaces. The natural openings. He says: 「臣之所好者道也，进乎技矣。」

What he values has gone beyond mere technique and approached the Dao. And he follows what is naturally so rather than forcing his knife blindly through resistance. This is almost a perfect description of flow. The beginner sees obstruction. The master sees structure. The beginner forces. The master enters the opening. The beginner spends energy. The master spends understanding.

游刃有余 — There Is Room for the Blade

From Cook Ding's story comes the famous expression: 游刃有余 There is ample room for the blade to move. I find this beautiful because it connects several of our ideas. Space. Focus. Discipline. Mastery. Flow.

The knife can move freely because the cook understands where the spaces are. Again, it is not merely strength. It is perception. Practice has taught him where reality permits movement.

This is something worth remembering: The more deeply you understand a situation, the less unnecessary force you may need. 

Flow Comes After Discipline

But do not make the mistake of thinking that Cook Ding became effortless without practice. He did not. Flow does not mean that discipline is unnecessary. In many cases, flow is what becomes possible because of discipline. The pianist practises scales. The photographer practises seeing. The writer practises writing. The athlete repeats movements. The yogi practises concentration. 

At first everything requires conscious attention. You must remember every step. Then slowly the knowledge enters the body. The movement becomes familiar. Eventually technique stops interrupting intention. Then something begins to flow.

So: Discipline prepares the channel.
Practice deepens the channel.
Flow moves through it. 

Psychological Flow

Modern psychology uses the same word — flow — in another interesting way. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi developed the concept to describe states of profound involvement in an activity.

Research on flow commonly identifies characteristics such as intense concentration, the merging of action and awareness, clear goals, feedback, reduced self-consciousness, altered perception of time, and an appropriate relationship between challenge and skill.

I recognise this immediately from experience. You begin writing. At first you struggle. You think about the words. You correct sentences. The mind is noisy. Then suddenly something changes. The writing begins to move. One sentence creates another. An idea appears. Another connects to it. You look at the clock. Two hours have disappeared. Where did the time go? You were inside the work. That is flow. 

Action and Awareness Become One

Normally there is a person and there is the activity. “I am writing.” “I am photographing.” “I am painting.” “I am playing.” During deep flow, that separation becomes quieter. There is simply: writing. photographing. painting. playing. Psychological accounts of flow call this a merging of action and awareness.

You are no longer standing outside yourself constantly judging: How am I doing? Do I look good? Is this impressive? What will other people think? Much of that disappears. You become the activity. This can be enormously satisfying. 

Why Time Disappears

Time also appears to change during flow. An hour may feel like ten minutes. This does not mean physical time has changed. Your attention has changed. Normally the mind divides itself: the task, the telephone, the future, the past, worries, self-consciousness, other people, the clock.

During flow, much more attention becomes concentrated upon the activity itself. The field narrows. External distractions recede. Research descriptions of flow repeatedly note this intense absorption and altered perception of time. In a sense: the mind has entered the river. 

Focus and Flow

Earlier I wrote about focus. Now the difference becomes clearer. Focus is attention directed. Flow is attention absorbed. At first, you have to focus deliberately. Stay with the page. Return to the problem. Ignore the telephone. Bring the mind back. Again. Again.

Then sometimes something changes. You no longer have to keep dragging attention towards the task. The task begins holding the attention itself. That is flow. So perhaps the sequence is: Discipline brings you to the work. Focus gathers the attention. Skill reduces friction. Challenge creates engagement. Then sometimes flow appears. 

Flow Requires the Right Level of Difficulty

Psychological research makes another useful observation. Flow tends to be associated with situations where the challenge and the person's skill are reasonably well matched. If something is far too easy, boredom may appear. If something is overwhelmingly beyond your present ability, anxiety may dominate.

But when the task stretches you without completely overwhelming you, deep engagement becomes more likely. I think this connects directly with lifelong learning. Do not remain only where you are comfortable. You will stagnate. But do not constantly throw yourself into things so far beyond your preparation that you cannot meaningfully engage.

Move towards the edge. Then improve. Then move the edge again. The river advances. 

How to Create the Conditions for Flow

You cannot command yourself: “Flow now.” The harder you ask: “Am I flowing yet?” the more self-conscious you become. But you can create conditions favourable to flow. First: Know what you are doing. A vague task fragments the mind. Instead of: “I am going to work on my book,” say: “For the next hour, I will write this section.”

Second: Remove unnecessary distraction. Put away the telephone. Close unrelated windows. Create the space.

Third: Choose an appropriate challenge. Not trivial. Not impossible.

Fourth: Develop skill beforehand. The better prepared you are, the less attention must be wasted fighting basic technique.

Fifth: Allow immediate feedback. Read the sentence. Look at the photograph. Listen to the music. Observe what your action produces. Then adjust.

Sixth: Stay long enough. The first twenty minutes may be noisy. Do not leave immediately. The river may need some distance before the channel deepens. And finally: Do not chase flow. Do the work. When flow arrives, allow it. When it does not, discipline remains.

Flow and Wu Wei

This brings us naturally towards: 无为 — wúwéi. Wu wei is often mistranslated simply as “doing nothing”. I think that misses the point. It is closer to acting without unnecessary forcing. Not absence of action. Absence of wasteful struggle. Cook Ding is active. The river is active. Water is constantly moving. But the movement follows conditions. This is why flow and wu wei seem related to me.

Perhaps: At first you work against the activity. Then you learn it. Then you understand it. Then you begin moving with it. Eventually action becomes almost natural. This is what mastery often feels like.

Flow in Communication

Now return to the social meaning. If I have something to say, I should ask: How can this idea flow towards another person? A child requires one kind of language. A professional another. Someone frightened may need gentleness. Someone experienced may need precision. Someone completely new to the subject needs examples. The idea can remain. The language changes. Again: direction remains; channel changes. That is communication. 

Do Not Lower the Truth — Lower the Barrier

This is very important. If you are communicating to the general public, do not make things complicated simply to demonstrate intelligence. But neither should you lie or remove essential complexity. 

The challenge is: Do not lower the truth. Lower the barrier to understanding the truth. This is what the great popular teacher does. He has climbed high enough to understand the mountain. Then he returns with a path that others can walk. That is intellectual generosity. That is knowledge flowing downhill.

Flow as Compassion

There is therefore an ethical dimension. If you possess more, perhaps something can flow outward. If you possess knowledge, teach. If you possess experience, advise when appropriate. If you possess wealth, allow some of it to benefit others. If you possess authority, use it to create possibilities. If you possess strength, protect. If you possess confidence, create space for somebody less confident. If you possess wisdom, make it understandable.

Do not measure your life only by what accumulates inside you. Ask: What has been able to flow through me towards others? This may be a better measure.

The Reservoir and the River

A reservoir that only stores and never releases eventually ceases to serve much beyond storage. Knowledge can become like that. You collect books. Qualifications. Experience. Ideas. But nothing leaves you. What is the purpose? I would rather think: Learn deeply. Accumulate understanding. Then let some of it flow. Write. Teach. Speak. Help. Create. Leave something for the next generation.

Perhaps that is part of what this very book is attempting to do.

The River Changes the Terrain Too

There is another important point. We should not imagine the relationship as one-sided. The terrain changes the river. But the river also changes the terrain. It cuts banks. Moves sediment. Forms valleys. Migrates. Creates floodplains. Over long periods, flowing water can profoundly reshape landscapes. So flow does not mean that circumstances completely determine you. You adapt to circumstances. But through your actions, you also alter circumstances. This is exactly what we discussed in 天时 · 地利 · 人和. The times shape the person. The person may also shape the times.

The place shapes you. You may also change the place. People influence you. You influence them. The river and landscape co-evolve. That is a much better model of human life than either complete control or complete helplessness. 

Sometimes the Shorter Course Appears

I especially like the river cutoff as a metaphor. A river may spend years creating a large bend. Then erosion brings two parts closer. A flood arrives. A new opening forms. The water suddenly takes a more direct path. The old loop may eventually become an oxbow lake. Something that was once the river is now part of its history.

Life contains these moments too. You may carry a belief for thirty years. Then one experience changes your understanding. You may follow one career. Then another possibility suddenly appears. You may struggle with a problem for months. Then one insight shortens the entire route. Do not despise the old meander. It brought you there. But when a better channel becomes clear, do not continue travelling the old curve merely out of habit. This is another form of wisdom: Respect your history without becoming imprisoned by it. 

Your Past Course Is Still Part of You

When a river abandons a meander, traces of the old course often remain upon the landscape. Life is similar. You may change direction. But your previous experiences do not disappear. The architect who becomes a photographer carries architecture into photography. The businessman who becomes a writer carries business experience into writing. The traveller carries landscapes. The older person carries decades.

A changed direction does not necessarily erase the past. It absorbs it. Sometimes your apparently unrelated experiences later combine into something distinctive. So do not worry too much if your life has meandered. The bends may become part of the character of the river. 

Flow Does Not Mean Hurry

There is another misconception. A river flows. But not every river is fast. Some water rushes through rapids. Some moves almost imperceptibly through a broad plain.

Flow is not speed. There are moments to move rapidly. There are moments to move slowly. There are moments to wait. Even a river may pool. So do not confuse constant speed with progress. Sometimes slow movement allows depth. Sometimes reflection requires stillness. Sometimes preparation appears to be no movement at all. The important thing is not that everything must be fast. The important thing is that stagnation does not become unconscious permanence. 

Still Water Is Also Water

This is why even stillness can belong to flow. A lake appears still. Yet water evaporates. Rain falls. Streams enter. Water leaves. Processes continue. Human life also needs pauses. Rest. Contemplation. Silence. These need not be interruptions to the journey. They may be part of the journey.

A person who never stops may eventually lose the ability to understand where he is going. So sometimes: flow means movement. Sometimes: flow means allowing a pause before the next movement. 

Flow and Opportunity

This also connects beautifully with opportunity. Earlier I wrote that opportunity favours those who are prepared. Imagine opportunity as a changing river. A new current appears. If you possess no skill, no preparation, no awareness, perhaps you cannot enter it. But if you have prepared, you recognise the current. Then perhaps you move with it.

This is 天时 again. The current does not remain forever. Sometimes you must act. So: Preparation gives readiness. Awareness recognises the current. Courage enters it. Flow helps you move. 

Flow and Space Flow also requires space. A river cannot flow through a completely solid wall unless something eventually gives way. Thought cannot flow if every conclusion is fixed.

Conversation cannot flow if one person occupies every moment. Creativity cannot flow if every minute is controlled. Relationships cannot flow if there is no tolerance. So again we return to: 留白 — leaving space. Space permits movement. Movement permits adaptation. Adaptation permits continuity. This is why rigidity eventually creates enormous stress. 

Flow and Discipline

At first, discipline and flow may appear opposite. Discipline sounds structured. Flow sounds free. But they complement one another. Discipline builds the banks. Flow moves between them. Without banks, water may spread everywhere and become directionless. Without water, the banks contain nothing. So: Discipline gives structure.
Flow gives movement. The art is having enough structure to create direction and enough freedom to adapt. 

Flow and Focus

Focus also belongs here. Focus says: This is where my attention goes now. Flow occurs when that attention becomes so absorbed that the movement begins to feel natural. Focus points the river. Flow is the river moving. Therefore: Focus gives direction. Flow gives continuity of movement.

Flow and Making Space

Space gives the river somewhere to move. Remember what I wrote about a building. A building is not useful merely because of the walls. The walls create the space in which life occurs. Likewise, a disciplined life cannot be filled completely with rules. There must be enough latitude for adaptation. Otherwise when circumstances change, everything breaks.

So: Discipline without space becomes rigidity.
Space without discipline becomes drift.
Flow is the intelligent movement between them.

The Philosophy of the River

When I put all these thoughts together, the river becomes almost a model of life. It has direction. But not one predetermined route. It responds to terrain. It adjusts to obstacles. It bends. It slows. It accelerates. It accumulates. It releases. It erodes. It deposits. It occasionally changes course dramatically. It enters low places. It benefits things along its path. It does not need to demonstrate strength continuously.

It can be soft. Yet over time it possesses enormous power. And despite all these changes of form, it remains recognisably water. That is perhaps the form of character I admire. 

Be Like Water — But Understand What That Means

People often say: “Be like water.” But this phrase can become too easy. What does it actually mean? For me, it means: Have direction without demanding one route. Adapt without losing your principles. Go around what does not need to be fought. Stand firm where values require firmness. Use the terrain instead of pretending the terrain does not exist.

Learn from friction. Allow experience to reshape you. When a shorter, wiser route becomes clear, take it. Do not remain in an old meander merely because it was once your path. Go towards the low places when doing so allows you to benefit others. Make difficult things accessible. Practise until action becomes fluid. Focus until unnecessary self-consciousness disappears. Create space through which movement can occur. That is much richer than merely: “Go with the flow.” 

Flow Without Losing Yourself

Perhaps the most difficult part is this: How much should I change? There is no simple answer. If you never change, you become rigid. If you change absolutely everything according to every circumstance, you have no centre. So perhaps the answer lies in distinguishing: essence from form.

The river changes form continuously. But it remains water. Your methods may change. Your profession may change. Your technology may change. Your language may change. Your opinions should sometimes change. But perhaps certain deeper principles remain: honesty, compassion, curiosity, gratitude, the pursuit of understanding, respect for others, the willingness to learn. These become your water. Everything else may become the channel. 

Do Not Mistake Ego for Identity

Sometimes what we refuse to change is not actually our principle. It is our ego. “This is how I have always done it.” “This is what I believe.” “This is my way.” Be careful. Ask: Is this truly essential? Or am I simply afraid to change?

A river does not become less of a river because the bend moves. Perhaps you do not become less yourself because your understanding develops. You may actually become more fully yourself. 

Let Knowledge Flow

There is one final lesson that I particularly want to leave with you. Whatever you learn, do not let everything end with you. Allow knowledge to flow. That is partly why I am writing these words. I have lived. Observed. Made mistakes. Learnt. Changed my mind. Read books. Met people. Travelled. Worked. Photographed. Designed. Reflected. Eventually all of this disappears if nothing is passed onward.

So I write. Perhaps you will disagree with some of it. Good. Do not simply copy me. Take what is useful. Think. Adapt. Add your own experience. Then pass something onward again. That itself is flow. 

A River Between Generations

Perhaps knowledge between generations should operate like a river. One generation becomes an upstream source. The next receives something. But it does not receive exactly the same water forever. New rain enters. New tributaries enter. New landscapes appear. The river changes. Your world will not be my world. Your children's world will not be yours.

Therefore I do not want these words to become rigid commandments. I would rather they become water. Receive them. Think about them. Allow them to meet your own terrain. Then perhaps their course will change. That is perfectly all right. If the essential wisdom remains useful, let the form evolve.

What I Hope You Will Remember

To my descendants, When circumstances change, do not panic merely because the old route is disappearing. Look again. Understand the terrain. Find the gradient. Watch where resistance is greatest. Look for the opening. Remember that the direction may remain even when the course changes. Remember that a long meander can eventually become a shorter channel. Remember that erosion is not always destruction. Sometimes erosion reveals another route. Remember that a flood can change a river quickly. 

So when life changes suddenly, be prepared to redraw the map. Remember that the low place is not necessarily an inferior place. The sea occupies the low place and receives the rivers. Remember Laozi: 「上善若水。」 The highest goodness is like water. Remember: 「水善利万物而不争。」 Water benefits the myriad things without contending.

And remember: 「天下莫柔弱于水，而攻坚强者莫之能胜。」 Nothing appears softer than water, yet its persistence can overcome the hard. So learn to flow. But do not drift. There is a difference. Drift has no direction.
Flow has direction with adaptability. Know what matters. Move towards it.

Do not insist upon travelling there by only one route. Allow the terrain to teach you. Allow time to alter you. Allow experience to erode unnecessary hardness. Allow learning to straighten some of your old meanders. Allow reflection to show you when a previous course has become obsolete. Allow discipline to maintain the movement. Allow focus to deepen the channel. Allow space to give movement room.

Allow compassion to carry what you know towards people who may benefit from it. And when you become capable of something valuable, do not merely remain at the source. Flow down. Make yourself understandable. Make yourself useful. Help knowledge reach the plain. Perhaps this is what I find most beautiful about water: It can begin high in the mountain, travel through countless landscapes, change direction innumerable times, become narrow, become broad, become rapid, become still, lose one channel, find another, reshape the land through which it passes, and finally arrive at the sea without ever having needed to remain one shape.

That is flow. Keep your direction.
Change your course when necessary.
Remain responsive to reality.
Do not waste yourself fighting every obstacle.
Do not surrender what is essential.
Let practice turn effort into fluency.
Let knowledge become benefit.
Let your life remain capable of changing shape. And perhaps, like the river, if you continue long enough, you will not merely move through the landscape. You will also leave the landscape changed by your passing.