Balance is a Process … Action not Result

A wise old man once told me that one of our fundamental human flaws is that we prefer “nouns to verbs.” My response was simple, “Freddie, what the hell does that mean?” He laughed really loudly and I felt a bit stupid, so I asked more forcefully, “What the hell, Freddie?”

“Look Ronnie, our human egos like to put things in fixed forms. We think of destination not journey. Or relationship not relating. We want to get things firm and hold them in place so we can use or control them. It’s what we do.”

“Fair enough,” I replied. “What’s your point?”

“Well that’s the cause of a lot of our frustration. Things are simply not fixed, no matter how hard we try to make it so. Alan Watts said that while the nature of everything is flux, we don’t like flux, so we delude ourselves into thinking we can fix things into place.”

“Here’s a good example, Ronnie. Rocks and metals look very stable though in fact they are ever so slowly degrading over long periods of time. They are in fact constantly changing, but we can’t see it, so we imagine it is not the case.”

“Got it,” I replied. “Then our vantage point has to be fluid too, and I actually have a practice to do that.”

“Tell me about it, Ronnie.”

“Well first, we have to know ourselves and our orientation, because we are always translating reality based on what we believe and how we see. Then, we’ve got to pay attention to what’s going on outside ourselves with some consideration for the person, thing or situation that is in our foreground. Based on all those things, we have to adjust what we say or do to be as effective as possible. And here’s the kicker. It really doesn’t matter what my opinion might be, because everything is how it is, and the only option I have is to adjust to reality.”

Freddie was nodding with a slight squint to his eyes that told me he was thinking it through. After a few moments he asked me to repeat it.

Then, we launched into a cool conversation about its implications. We concluded that reality is in fact a process and ever-changing. Nothing is really static, so all we can do is be ever-changing in order to match fluidity with fluidity.