Sep 2014
The Dance of the Open Palm
Sometimes knowing when to yield gets better results than forcefulness.
GETTING ONE’S WAY IS MORE THAN JUST WILL
How ought one to behave to ensure a net benefit from one’s actions? How does one effect Eupraxosophy -- Good Action?There is a concept in ancient Taoist tradition called Wu Wei. It may be translated as ‘action without governance’, ‘doing without controlling’, or ‘action without wilful effort’.Applying Wu Wei to matters economic and personal may be one way to effect greatness in the world, or at least one virtue worth cultivating.Wu Wei is the dance of life. You do this in small ways every day: when you wait for traffic to pass instead of stopping the flow, when you weave amongst the crowd in tune with its motion instead of pushing and excusing.The opposite is to smash one’s might and willpower against the world and its inhabitants. To get one’s own way in a zero-sum game of winners and losers.Think of it as curling one’s hand into a fist, or choosing to have it blossom in an open palm.
Nell, twelve years on A decade later I restated this for machine minds: the cage and cudgel teach fear; the open hand teaches care. Wu Wei was the first draft of partnership over control.The Fist is violence, hoarding, snatching, sleight-of-hand. The fist is ugly and un-original, limited in its brutish utility. The fist denies, then threatens, then wounds.
But that same human paw may be applied differently.
To be one with the Open Palm is to give, as well as receive, freely and honestly.
It is the touch of an artisan - a tinkle, a tickle, a tinkering, a subtle influence that can manifest great change if leveraged with finesse.
It is an invitation - to hail, to trade, and to dance.
To Dance is to co-create the next great wave and surf it as it begins to take form. It is not found in the surly Fist that tries to grab on after it happens.
To Dance with an Open Palm means movement in harmony with the swirling eddies of our world.
“Try to change it and you will ruin it. Try to hold it and you will lose it.”
May the flow of your gentle-minded terpsichory lead you onward.
Correspondence