With respect to love, the Malagasy have a proverb which says:
"Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river."
In the Tao te Ching, it reads:
"Nothing in the world
is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,nothing can surpass it." -Chapter 78
From these two quotations does a notion begin to take shape; that a soft and gentle force, applied persistently, can have profound consequences. The course of a river may change little in a year, but give 10,000 years and the view is usually quite different. The force of gravity does little to prevent a person from defying it temporarily by jumping into the air, yet ask that person to defy it 10,000 times without rest, and the result is likely tired person no longer intent on jumping.
For all the ease it takes to overcome a soft force once, it is remarkable how many examples in nature show evidence of its power. Consider a cork floating in a pond. Push it under water, and it will hardly resist. Yet take away your finger, and straight to the surface it will rise. The cork will never resist, but never remains underwater for long.
If one clasps tightly to a blob of clay, it will squeeze through one's fingers and end up on the floor. If one grasps at something in water with force, the thing flows away. The harder one grasps, the faster it slides away. To carry clay or catch a thing in water, the open hand seems to work better than the tight fist.
We respect force because it hurts, but we respect gentleness because it effortlessly transforms. Frequently this idea is forgotten, or dismissed as inaccurate. I do not know whether it is a fact, but I do think enough instances in the world exist to warrant reflection from time to time.
Happy Saturday :)
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