One of the greatest challenges of writing articles exploring ‘purposelessness’ is that you can’t force writing on-topic and practice what you preach. So, this newsletter can get sidetracked by whatever is taking my fancy in any given writing session.
It seems ‘forcing’ myself to write on-topic, or anything at all, requires accepting a level of irony that I’m not going with my flow. Or does it?
Going with the flow doesn’t have to mean allowing yourself to get smashed into any rock the river tries to push you into, such as writer’s block. I’m confident that in Dao De Jing, Laozi was not implying we go with the flow to the point of smashing into avoidable rocks and sustaining avoidable injury. The point is to respect the flow and, without forcibly going against it, steer a safe route.
Getting smashed into rocks is inevitable, you’re never truly in control in any case, but responding to flow and steering a course towards your goals with intention (i.e. by applying force mindfully), is essential to achieving them. So perhaps ‘go with the flow’ is better stated as ‘steer with the flow’.
In a writing sense, this means despite not having a specific inspiration to write about, I open Word, write a title, write a first sentence and see what flows from there. And that is exactly how this article ended up written!
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I love the idea of "steering with the flow." I recently had this experience with writing. I started writing something based on a prompt (which sometimes feels better than staring at a blank screen thinking of what to write), but as soon as I felt that the topic was becoming something else, I pivoted and continued writing about the new topic. There still was the ease of going with the flow, and at the same time, I was able to consciously redirect where the flow was taking me!