Day 55 - Yoda vs Bruce Lee

be water, my friend

It's been very wet lately.   The rain seems endless, and whilst we don't have the horrendous flooding that some parts of the country have had, there are lots of minor localised floods.

This is a tiny one in the field down the lane.   Yep, this is a field, normally used to graze sheep or to cultivate hay (if you can call "leaving the grass until it gets really very long indeed" cultivation)...

You can see some curiously blue sky in the reflection on this over-achieving puddle...the sun was shining sporadically from behind, here...although somewhat predictably, not when I had my phone in camera mode.

I took a dozen or so shots here, but the light was bright, so I couldn't see the screen very well...and holding the camera low, it was challenging to frame.  This is the first one, and was the best of a sorry bunch.

It's remarkable how often the first photo I take is the best.  I don't know why I bother with the rest, although I still do...but what does it say about consciously framing the shots, if the harder I try, the less acceptable I find the finished product?

This is starting to sound a little Zen, and I'm reminded, somewhat surreally, of the philosophy of both Bruce Lee, and Yoda (what a match up - my money's on Bruce).

Of course, there's the oft-repeated Jedi wisdom:

"Try not!  Do or do not, there is no try..."

This classic line says to me that one should quieten ones mind and let doing flow, unimpeded by mental, emotional or psychological obstruction.

Bruce Lee expressed this same idea slightly differently, with the equally iconic line from Enter the Dragon:

"Don't think, feel..."

Which flows nicely into his most famous philosophy, and also leads me neatly back to my picture:

"Empty your mind; be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

This is not an analogy for fighting, although it works in that context.    As with everything he said and did, it was about life itself.

Align yourself with your environment, rather than fighting it.   Bend to accommodate life, rather than stiffly resisting it.  Flow smoothly around obstacles, rather than pushing through them.

Be water, my friends...