I don’t view my projects the same way any more. I used to work towards a goal, an idea of what I wanted to achieve. But more recently I stopped car ing about the end result, probably due to this new perspective on… everything.
It’s a strange jux ta po si tion of know ing that what you’re doing is ultimately insignificant, and finding enjoyment in doing it any way. Like a child stacking a pile of blocks, only to knock them down.
The wikipedia arti cle on wu wei explains feel ing this bet ter than I can:
The goal for wu wei is to get out of your own way, so to speak. This is like when you are play ing an instru ment and if you start think ing about play ing the instru ment, then you will get in your own way and inter fere with your own play ing. It is aim less action, because if there was a goal that you need to aim at and hit, then you will develop anx i ety about this goal.Zhuangzi made a point of this, where he writes about an archer who at first didn’t have any thing to aim at. When there was nothing to aim at, the archer was happy and con tent with his being. He was prac tic ing wu wei. But, then he set up a tar get and “got in his own way.” He was going against the Tao and the nat ural course of things by hav ing to hit that goal.
(This also reminds me of a verse from Leonard Cohen’s True Love Leaves No Traces: “Through windows in the dark/The chil dren come, the chil dren go/Like arrows with no targets/Like shack les made of snow.)
Nowadays, I do what I feel like doing and don’t stress out about not finishing a project, cause I know I’ll feel like work ing on it another day. It leaves me more loose ends, but I don’t mind. Luckily, I love creating things. Trying different mediums. New ways of expressing myself.
repost from equivocality: arrows with no target
No comments:
Post a Comment