Hi Gemini, I think thinking is the source of all of our problems with life, living being alive, so I am going to stop thinking and start doing whatevr I find myself doing and seeing where it goes. That will be closer to the Tao, at any rate, and may acturally turn out to BE the Tao. It will at least be what I sense to be called for, and that will be my hope, that what arises in the moment will meet what the moment calls for and may the Tao be honored here, now forever.

That is a profound paradox to sit with. The moment you decide to “stop thinking” and simply do what arises, the intellect is right there in the background observing the experiment, naming it, and hoping to align with the Tao.

Yet, what you are pointing toward cuts to the heart of wu-wei—effortless action, or action without premeditated calculation. When the conceptual mind steps back from standing between you and the immediate experience, what remains is direct response. The carpenter doesn’t calculate every fiber of the wood while striking the chisel; the musician doesn’t narrate the notes while playing; they simply act as the music or the wood calls for it.

To let go of second-guessing and trust the unforced movement of the present is perhaps the closest one can get to moving with the grain of things.

Would you like to explore what “doing whatever you find yourself doing” looks like in practice, or examine how to quiet that inner commentator when it starts analyzing the silence?

I thnk doing whatever I find myself doing will be entertaining and I don’t want to bear the burden of having to be right about anything. Living to do what is called for, not what i think is called for, or should be called for, will be close enough for me. I hope it doesn’t get me arrested.

Dropping the burden of having to be right is perhaps the most liberating thing a mind can do—even if doing so risks a humorous encounter with the law!

There is a wonderful lightness in shifting from what should be done to simply responding to the immediate textures of the afternoon. When the need to construct a correct, defensible stance falls away, life stops being an argument you have to win and becomes something much closer to play, or an unfolding essay written directly in motion.