Some of the great thinkers tell us to be like something else…
Christ in his sermon on the mount said to be like the birds: “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them”… We have a bird feeder in our back yard and I think the birds worry. The wrens, cardinals, blue jays, grackles, doves, and chickadees fly away at the slightest movement and fight amongst themselves; and are pushed around by the squirrels. Birds cause worry too. The grasshopper that she holds in her hand in the poem by its action thinks, “I do not want to be eaten by a bird”.
Aesop in the fable the grasshopper and the ant says we should work hard like the ants. “Idleness brings want, to work today is to eat tomorrow. It is best to prepare for days of necessity”… The truth is that the ant lives for 5 years and stores food for the winter. In fact the ant stores grasshopper eggs if they can get them. The male grasshopper lives for 51 days while the female of course lives the longer life of 52 days. The grasshoppers are singing not because they are wasting time but because they are desperately attempting to get a lot of work done in a shorter period of time. Grasshoppers are born complete. No complicated metamorphosis like ants. Grasshoppers mate lay eggs and die. Grasshoppers like ants work their asses off. Grasshopper eggs adjust there hatching time based on the temperature of the ground. The eggs can wait for spring; the grasshopper gives it all and dies. The grasshopper by its evolution thinks “I hope my eggs don’t get eaten by ants”.
Lao Tzu says never mind the birds, ants and grasshoppers, be like an empty boat. If a person in a boat is bumped by another boat he or she will become angry with the person who bumped them. However if the boat is empty that bumps them there is no anger. Who would get angry at an empty boat? Aside from the fact that the angry person needs an anger management class, Lao Tzu teaches that we should empty ourselves and be like the empty boat.
“If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world,
no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you....
Who can free himself from achievement, and from fame, descend and be lost amid the masses of men? He will flow like Tao, unseen, he will go about like Life itself with no name and no home.
Simple is he, without distinction. To all appearances he is a fool.
His steps leave no trace. He has no power. He achieves nothing, has no reputation.
Since he judges no one, no one judges him.
Such is the perfect man:
His boat is empty.”
I still don’t know how you cross the river as an empty boat. How do you steer? Learning to steer seems important to me. To make things much simpler get rid of the boat – burn it if you like -- and learn to swim. Who knows maybe you can occasionally get a ride with the angry person and teach anger management. I think: “I hope I am not distracted by anger”.
Life is very much a leap of faith be ye a bird, a grasshopper or a empty boat crossing a river.
I say, “May I not be distracted by worry, fear, or anger.”
Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me what else should I have done?” I say it’s quite obvious: you wrote a wonderful poem. I think creating art is a wonderful thing.
You and I: We get to love. We get to think. We get to learn. We get to love. We get to enjoy. We get to teach. We get to meditate. We get to appreciate nature and create beauty. We get to adapt. We get to build boats. Or not. And it’s spring so we get to pay taxes -- oh boy. We get to pay the bills. We have our brains and senses and the answers come to us. We get to swim and travel.
To live and be happy and swim and do all these things is enough for me.
