The Mental Arts Tidbit (Mar. 4)

Writing the Waves

The Mental Arts Tidbit for the Day

Current Musing

Waves and waves and waves
And waves that’s how you write the waves of emotion like one continuous catch 
On the sailboat we look to the sky and on the sky we look for the catch 
To emotion and in motion and another and another and to not drown but to stay balanced on that deck and to stay calm during the wreck and to stay cool under the neck of the broken bow and you wave, wave, wave good day

In the movie Interstellar as the scientists are gathering important samples, they look over the horizon and spot some mountains that seem to be getting closer. When they look again, they realize that those aren’t mountains but instead WAVES.

Lots of advice columns talk about surfing or riding the waves as an analogy to demonstrate emotional equanimity. Having neither surfed and having slightly vague fear of the ocean, I’ve been focused on the way that waves overlap on each other — when one recedes from the beach and how another one is already meeting it.

To me, this is a more accurate representation of life. There are no clear answers. Just a series of overlapping experiences, each one vaguely like the next. For me, it makes more sense to go through a wave, rather than try to surf it. I let the experience wash over me.

In my experience, training martial arts is the same way. Instead of trying to teeter always on the edge of falling down, I’ve been trying to let the experiences of training wash over me. That doesn’t mean I’m passively waiting to “drown,” but I’m not actively resisting it either. The energy that I use is purposeful — it lets me stay afloat long enough before the next wave comes.

Try This Tidbit

Sometimes, something that might seem like a mountain may instead be a wave. How can you prepare for it to wash over you?