"Be Water, My Friend"

I have to admit being annoyed that this was the topic chosen, a little because the abstractness of the title would limit some of the participation, but also because it is a title that oozes pretension whether the one suggesting it means to do so or not.  It is the well-known quote from Bruce Lee used in a car commercial a few years ago, and also from some movie the man made before his untimely death.  The thing about Asian faces in Hollywood roles is that they are often assigned some kind of mystical role and everything that comes out of their mouths is imbued with some deep, metaphorical meaning when it might just be words strung together to sound nice.  When they are not the menacing villains, they are Zen masters, offering enlightenment through riddles and nature imagery that is deceptively simple, if only we would let our overworked minds "see" reality instead of trying to analyze it.  This is not to say that there is no wisdom in Eastern thought, but that the way it is presented to us in film is superficial at best.  Gathering a bit more context for those particular words, we see that Lee (or his character) speaks about the power and resilience of water as an element.  Water flows, it is flexible.  It can also destroy in a tidal wave or storm.  Water is both pliable and forceful.  Following its example, we can adapt to new situations and still remain true to ourselves.  There may also be the idea that water is necessary for life, so we should be embracing our roles as protectors of the continuity of life, probably human, but also perhaps all life on this earth.  Still, the pop culture quote left a bad taste in my mouth for what was not an uninteresting discussion.

The Source is well known for his suggestions of this type, and not with pretentiousness but with an innocent and almost naive curiosity about them.  He said that since we are mostly water in our physical makeup, we might interpret the quote to mean that we should be ourselves, our natural selves rather than what others expect us to be.  He continued, wondering if our fascination with thinking and rationality is a distortion of our true humanity.  There is a cult of reason in our society, perhaps giving reason and logical thinking more credit than they deserve.  We overlook many other characteristics of humanity, more intuitive and less easily explained, in our worship of the thought process.  He reminded us of the idea that there are things that cannot be observed unless the mind is silent.  He also explained that there is a Chinese concept of "no action" which does not actually mean doing nothing, but rather allowing only the right things to happen naturally.  Later he compared logic to a trap that limits our understanding of reality, but not a trap without an escape.  He did not elaborate on the possible escape methods but noted that acting on intuition does not mean that we are not using our reason.  Still, he warned, there is a point when thoughts become not only not useful, but counterproductive,  He then wandered into the concept of words as representatives of reality, comparing them to a system of sampling that our brains construct into a whole without having to expend the energy of processing and storing all the information.  He returned to his main idea by asking if we the participants thought philosophy brought happiness, and if it was better to be right or to be happy.  He insisted that we are missing something by putting the mind on a pedestal.  His final contribution began with his attempt to answer what he thought another participant had left hanging as a doubt: what should we be water for?  His answer was, to optimize life.  He continued, saying rigid opinions dictate our view of the world, normally giving it a negative and dangerous tone.  "A vale of tears," he quoted to us.  As he was mentioning the recent earthquake that left thousands dead in Nepal as an example of rigidity being toppled by a surprise movement, the supposed questioner reacted with self-righteous fury, saying he was not in fact defending rigidity and he had even answered his own question.  He whined on and on, probably about being misunderstood, finally having to be calmed by the Leader.  Allowed to continue, the Source related inflexible views to religious violence, another of his pet topics.  He believes a rigid worldview creates an environment where the mind must be constantly reacting and analyzing everything it comes across; when everything is negative, it can be a type of hell.  His take-away from the phrase was finally that we should not have any closely held views, but be more flexible in our interpretations of the world.  The offended idiot was allowed to speak for a moment and he huffed and puffed about the Source talking about a completely different topic than he had been talking about.

Our Doctor was once again surprised by the direction we were taking our discussions in terms of topics.  He admitted to knowing nothing about Bruce Lee, but said when someone says, "My friend," that person is attempting to sell something.  A problem in the modern world is that now people know too much, and we give verbal solutions to problems instead of practical ones.  He recognized the metaphorical reality of the phrase, but also said that philosophy is precision.  He then asked what condition the water should be in for us to emulate it and be successful; any condition of water is affected by gravity, by temperature, by any number of factors.  In fact, he thought we could say never be water just because of its helplessness in the face of those factors.  However, anybody can be wrong, and he declared himself glad to be wrong, since it can be a learning experience.  Even before the Source got on his language track, the Doctor mentioned language as a mere substitute for what is real, and said he knows his language is a lie.  Still, his language might seem harsh to some when he said he hated Bruce Lee, the expression about water, and while he did not generally hate the Source, he hated him at that moment.  In a later contribution, he said it was interesting to discuss things with people from different educational and vocational backgrounds since it provides the opportunity to be exposed to new perspectives.  He ended up agreeing with the Source about the need for more than pure rationality in our lives, but lamented the time humanity has wasted on mythology, feelings, "nothing".  His final recommendation for us was that we should cure our wounds and look to new solutions instead of remaining anchored to old states of mind.

The True Philosopher spent his writing time, as well as most of his first contribution, on the advantages of flexibility exemplified in water.  He clarified in the meeting that the understanding of other people is what we should be referring to in this metaphor, which is an idea for capturing the essence of experience.  Water flows and seeps deep, getting to the heart of matters.  We are also fortunate that the True Philosopher comes from an Eastern country, although he calls himself only half Oriental, so his perspective was a welcome novelty, in the sense of it being something we are not familiar with hardly at all.  In contrast to some other comments, he explained that the metaphors of Eastern philosophies/religions are meant to be guides to living and therefore practical rather than abstract theory.  He defined the general differences between Eastern and Western thought as being reflection, appreciation and simple for the East, and discourse, analysis and critique being of the West.  He even said the Oriental mind was a simple one, in that imagery from nature is the go-to tool for instruction rather than plotting linear and rational thought processes.  His final words were that fluidity is the issue here, the ability to flow like a stream as a method for good living.

The Leader also seemed a little frustrated with the lack of solidity in the topic in his written thoughts, while in the meeting he declared himself unconvinced by the idea of sampling reality.  Linguistic codes do not follow the same development as the mathematical codes used for audio sampling.  This topic is another case of lack of context that obscures meaning for us, or possibly the lack of meaning.  Lee cannot explain what he meant when he said the words, although the Source can tell us what they meant to him personally.  Although there are some qualities worth taking on from water, like flexibility, for the Leader learning skills are key to survival.  Later on, he complained a bit about the interpretations we take away from the "samples" we receive, saying that we do not even interpret for ourselves.  We are told what to expect.  Most people never fully develop their capacity to interpret and question information around them.

The Seeker of Happiness bit into the sampling idea in his first contribution, saying it was very simple from a technological perspective - pure math.  He then focused on probably the most famous context we have for the phrase, which is the car commercial.  He wondered why a car company would give us this advice.  The purpose of a company is to make money selling its products, not to enlighten the public.  He also mentioned the metaphorical aspect of the phrase, admitting metaphor is a part of the language, but he insisted that a metaphor has no meaning of its own.  All meaning comes from context, and much of the time that context is individual.  We need words to think, in his opinion, and to express our thoughts, but at the same time we have nothing truly original.  Everything we know is based on past experience.  As the meeting went on, he also became frustrated with the topic and in his last contribution said we had been talking about ridiculous things.  He doubted any one of us understood the commercial, and by extension the original phrase, but not understanding something does not make it deep or philosophical.  He found the discussion to boil down to "pop" philosophy, containing nothing serious.  In the end, he stated baldly that being water is the worst thing to do, either as a warning against jumping into ideas we do not fully understand or in a fit of pique.

The Educator began by saying she did not vote for the topic, so she was not responsible for it and the silliness or difficulties that might come out of it, but she did end up taking the search for positive aspects of water seriously.  For one, there is a sort of universal quality to water as an idea.  The planet is covered with water, even seeing it spring from the center of landmasses in lakes and rivers.  Besides the previously mentioned flow and flexibility, water is nurturing; without water, the land cannot be fruitful.  Also, when we imagine water, we imagine it in a pure and clean state, which are other qualities to emulate.  While deep water can also be dangerous, it is receptive and invites trust.  She mentioned that when swimming one has to trust the water, and go as a friend and not an adversary.  That is probably the reason I am not a swimmer.  Despite some argument about specific bodies of water being polluted, she stuck with the purity aspect, telling us that we can succeed if we are sincere, humble and transparent, like pure water.  Given her background in the arts, I wonder if her worldview is somewhat more prepared to accept this type of metaphor than that of more mechanical minds.