Water is an amazing substance. We've been getting a lot of that in the past 24 hours here in Iowa. Being liquid, it channels around objects in its path, obeying gravity, just naturally falling. Water doesn't stress. It ignores obstacles. Maybe that's why we like the sound of running water... we wish we were more like that. Reading the book, Red Scarf Girl, I lived vicariously through the author's eyes what it was to be in Chairman Mao's communist China - seeing how people had filters for others - what they could wear, what they could say, how they could live... strange rules that changed on a whim and made all of society walk on eggshells. Or what happened with the works of Otto Dix and his fellow German expressionst painters who had their art cut short and declared degenerate by the Nazi's. I'm reading Thinkertoys, and in it, the author talks of the things that squelch innovation. The criticism of others who insist that it's been done before, or that it can't be done, or at least not by you. Or they laugh at the result and belittle the effort. This morning I listened to Bonnie Raitt's "One Part Be My Lover," which contains this lyric: He's like a boxer who had to retire
after winning but killing a man
He's got all of the moves and none of the courage
Afraid to throw a punch that might land My sons game online, and one of them has found a group of people with whom he is the most "himself" that I've seen him be with anyone. He acts goofy if he chooses, courts around having fun, and acts like a jerk on occasion, but all is forgiven. The group accepts each other they way that they are and they don't stem each other's natural expression.I took some classes in college on Interpersonal Communication, which went into great length and exhaustive study about attraction and friendships and relationships. I've been married twice. I've seen friends come and go. I think all that we're looking for - and feel free to bring every human being into this little circle I'm drawing here - all that we're looking for is a place where we can freely release our energies and for a group of people with whom we can freely express who we are without being curtailed. Unmitigated flow. A friend of mine says, "Your right to throw a punch stops just short of my nose." Live and let live, so long as your own freedom of expression doesn't hurt others or inhibit them from their own free flow. I'm going to noodle through "flow" a bit more, but for me philosophically, I'm all for free flow: whether it's a form of government or the friends that I choose. If I run into obstacles, I'll be like water. A day is too important to waste stressing about obstacles. | 
