Among the many ideas I collect for Improvised Life is a folder called Random Wisdom, notable hunks of wisdom that have come to me unexpectedly from someone I know or strangers I’ve overheard. I am so used to gathering quotes from known, famous humans, that it is especially wonderful to realize that ordinary people generate seriously good wisdom.
The other day talking to a friend about being more fluid in our lives, he said:
Let’s be like rivers.
A strangely perfect play on Be like a river. Rivers. More possibilities, his different than mine.
With the synchronicity that is commonplace at Improvised Life, shortly afterward Editor at Large David Saltman emailed me link about Water.Shapes.Earth, photographer Milan Radisics photographs of the way water has shaped our planet. Here are some of his photographs of rivers…
…each one different…
…unique…
…but with the same impulse of fluid movement in response to the moment….
The qualities of water are showing us
how we move inside grace. — Rumi
not to contradict, but rather to show how incredibly beautiful and complex something that seems random, actually is: what’s amazing is river flow isn’t random (nor i suspect, is our own behavior and movement, even though we think it is)…with rivers, it’s actually determined by forces around it, such as wind, soil, conditions, and for example, browsers and wolves. you may have seen this TED talk video, but it is just so beautiful, and important, and deep, that i’ll post it here anyway: https://blog.ted.com/video-how-wolves-can-alter-the-course-of-rivers/