Go with the flow
By John Atkinson
Do you go with the flow or stand in its face?
When the currents of opinion and action are too strong, to stand alone in their face is to be swept away. If you build a coalition to support you, you are going with a different flow. Either way you are washed along.
Need we find our individual agency? Where is the balance between self and whole?
People like to use the analogy of navigating ‘whitewater’; fast-flowing and powerful. As a whitewater kayaker I ran rivers that had never been paddled before and I raced whitewater slalom internationally. I’ll therefore join this flow of thought, and at the same time, look to add my sense of how to find a line though tumultuous waters, with crashing waves and deep hydraulics, powerful enough to suck you so deep that you never appear again.
You cannot enter such a powerful flow as a novice. You can barely leave the safety of the water’s edge before you are at the mercy of insurmountable power. To have any chance of survival, we build our skills in safer environments. We learn to make judgements on risk and safety, and learn the extents and the limits of our skill. We learn how far we can venture before we are a risk to ourselves and others. Those who never learn that are lucky to return to the safety of the shore. Those who observe, and attend with care and respect, noticing what matters, whether big or small, are those who learn how they can flourish in a potent environment.
At first we rely on our own strength. In smaller flows we can push a course against the current. We punch through waves, exhilarated by the speed and our new found freedom. But our puny strength is no match for even a small torrent. When we enter life’s major flows, our individual strength cannot be used to fight the current.
As the flow gets stronger, the waves get higher, the drops steeper. Sharp rocks above and below the surface, form an increasing impediment to progress. Suddenly the route is unclear, we are faced with unexpected and immediate choices and we aren’t clear where to go. At this point, without a different skill, we are swept along. We are surviving. However much we whoop with joy as we exit the cataract, if we are honest we know we are safe as much by luck as judgement.
To be safe in the world’s most powerful flows is to become at one with them and to remain separate. It is to build an innate sense through hours of water time as to where to be on the river. Left, centre, right. Moving fast, moving slow. Minute changes in posture, lean and angle shift how the flows impact upon us. In the midst of huge power there is a need for intimate delicacy. We need all our senses and intuition, feeling the water on the hull and deck, through the paddle, and to instinctively know what it is signalling us to do. We must relish the vitality that comes from the cold splash on our face.
And then something magical happens. You and the flow become one. Suddenly you can be anywhere in it, using its power to gently place you where you need to be. You can feel how it is flowing just as you see where it is flowing. You become aware that it is not one flow but many, rising and falling through all dimensions. Your senses are alive, respectful, humble. You acknowledge where your power comes from. If you over reach its limits, very quickly you become little better than driftwood. When your intent is synchronous with the flow, by subordinating your personal power your reach becomes virtually limitless.
I spent a decade in white water, almost every day, sometimes three times a day, feeling into the flow. This is how I am in my work today. If I cannot feel the flow, I am consigned to driftwood, circulating and bobbing in the eddies until eventually I go under.
And when you connect to the flow, anything is possible. It will even lift you up against its very direction. When you learn to let go of ego and acknowledge your vulnerability, suddenly you find the power of the flow is available to you. If you are sensitive to nuance and need, you access forces you might never imagine.
This has been a reflection on power and how you use it. When you find yourself in the middle of events far more powerful than yourself, recognise that the turn those events take is not about you. Just as a kayaker I am irrelevant to the river, that cares not if I live or drown, so in the midst of overwhelming human power I must stop fighting for what I want and sense the flow of possibilities. Agency comes when I subordinate my ego, my desire, and feel only for what can be. When I can feel this, the magic happens.