A valuable addendum

This is an excerpt from my journal that I have been keeping. Most of what I write is personal reflection but this has a lot to do with the experiential learning I spoke of in the previous post. I write word for word from my journal as follows, grammatical mistakes and all.
"I experienced a valuable insight yesterday. It is made more important by a verse from the Tao I happened to read today."

Verse 8 Tao
1[The highest form of goodness is like water.
2[Water knows how to benefit all things without striving with them.
3[It stays in places loathed by men.
4[Therefore it comes near the Tao.

5[In choosing your dwelling, know how to keep to the ground.
6[In cultivating your mind, know how to dive the hidden deeps.
7[In dealing with others, know how to be gentle and kind.
8[In speaking, how to keep your words.
9[In governing, know how to maintain order.
10[In transacting business, know how to be efficient.
11[In making a move, know how to choose the right moment.

12[If you do not strive with others,
13[ You will be free from blame.

"I was reflecting yesterday on my first several months here in Buenos Aires and I focused in on rigidity vs. flexibility of thought. For a long time I fought against the ways, the tendencies, the nuances of the culture. I tried with great effort to apply my way of life from the states, from small town Vermont, as a way of living successfully in this new climate. However my thought was too rigidly fixed for me to see that what may be successful in one time and place may not work, may even be detrimental, in another. In short I tried to force my Vermont life, habits, and way of thinking, into the context of Buenos Aires. That is the equivalent of trying to force a circular peg into a square hole. Frustrating as it was I rigidly continued to hammer away at the peg, with limited results.

Slowly, very slowly, my thought began to warm up, to stretch its legs and test itself with new approaches. I saw this gradual thawing of my thought but was at a loss to account for it or describe what was taking place. However with my eureka moment yesterday and the Tao verse today I do believe I have reached a point of clarity.

I consider it a fallacy to relate people to anything other than other people. People are people. They are not water, or animals, or plants. All have different and incomparable forms. They may share some common elements but each are unique unto themselves. However I do believe that you can liken human thought to something else to create an image. For instance with thought being like water in line 2 of the Tao v.8. For me I had to transform my thought to water. I had to allow my thought to settle and conform to the place and culture in which I am immersed. I had to free my thought from the vice grip of the ways in which my thought had guided me in the past and I had to allow a new way of thinking to form and evolve based on my preset circumstances.

The keyword in lines 5-11 is "know." In this context "know" is different than "thinking you know.""
For example in line 7,
In dealing with others, know how to be gentle and kind.

"In this context you "think you know" how to be gentle and kind but this is all based on your knowledge of another environment. True knowing is understanding and cultivating gentleness and kindness anew in each successive and new environment. This requires maintaining a flexibility of thought that allows it to flow into each successive situation and mold to them, and just as easily out to the next situation.

Of course people, as I said earlier, are not water. Our thought is not water. It does not fit perfectly to every situation. That does not mean we can't aspire to emulate the qualities of water in our thought. I would much rather my thought be likened to water than to a metal rod or a wooden plank.

If thought more closely resembles water tensions will begin to fade and the path will hold less bumps and hills."

2[Water knows how to benefit all things without striving with them.
12,13[If you do not strive with others, you will be free from blame.


That was my eureka journal entry. I finally found out why it has been so difficult for me to adjust to this new environment. I can guarantee I've mellowed out a lot since I discovered this tension I had been living with. I'm just surprised I didn't see it sooner. Just because a way of thinking and acting works in one environment is no justification at all for believing it will work in another. Especially when the two environments are as structurally and culturally different as Buenos Aires and Norwich, Vermont.

One of my favorite actors of all time sums it up quite nicely in his role as "the dude."

Man with awesome cowboy hat: "How's it been goin'?"
the dude: "Ahh, you know, strikes and gutters. Ups and downs."
Man with awesome cowboy hat: "Gotcha."
the dude: "yeah."
Man with awesome cowboy hat: "Take it easy dude, I know that you will."
the dude: "Oh yeah, well, the dude abides."
man with awesome cowboy hat: "The dude abides."