It turns out that this post is going to be an extension on the last, around the same theme of “finishing”. It makes perfect sense, right? This must be a lesson to work on for a long time. Earlier in the month I was thinking more of floating on a yin stream through the big undertakings in our lives. House, family, friendships… these are not things that you create and then they’re done. They need to flow, they have a cycle, and when you play down your ego you get to sense those things better and how you can subtly help direct them. But you need to stop and listen. Yin. For other tasks, building a roof for example, you need more direct and purposeful focus, more yang. There’s a job to do, a clear way how to do it, and in the day-to-day world often a sense of urgency as well.
I was about 20 yards deep into weeding 2 acres of black beans when I entertained these thoughts. It was exactly that urgency that got me out there and I was up for it. The beans were doing well, almost knee high and just starting to bud. But fast growing clumps of tall grasses were doing even better. They had already once colonized the field and this time I wanted to catch them before they grew into spiky green behemoths.
Like I said though, I didn’t mind. It was the first semi-sunny, dryish day in months, nothing else was really pressing and I felt like I needed to do some honest physical work. For the first quarter hour or so I was flush with newbie farmer enthusiasm. “This is what it’s about! Working the field with my own hands.” It was hot. Before long I was sweating like a cold beer at a summer picnic (the image of which, incidentally, was the other thing floating through my mind at the time). But I didn’t mind.
Until I did. The pendulum began to swing from my satisfying, abstract musings when I stood up to stretch my back and survey my work. Not bad. Then I looked over the 95% of the field I’d yet to cover. Hmm. I bent back down to continue but discomfort, frustration and doubt sprouted in my mind and spread quickly. My enthusiasm wilted. Before long I’d slid a long way down the slope from “Yes!” to “Shit! This’ll take forever to finish.” Actually, it was the speed of the descent that made me stop and think.
In the circumstances, I did what any normal American would do – I cast my mind back through the centuries to ancient India, to the Kurukshetra Plain where Krishna and Arjuna conferred on the eve of an epic battle. For the thousandth time I recalled Krishna’s invaluable advice. “Give yourself to your work, but let go of the results.” With the taste of frustration still burning on my lips, it was easy to see the wisdom in these words. I breathed deeply and bent back to my work, one clump at a time.
A new world opened up. First I explored my weeding technique: what exact posture was best for getting my weight behind my efforts & keeping my back happy; how could I grab the stalks of the weeds so that the clumps would naturally break apart as I pulled? Once I’d dialed in my weed fu I turned my focus outwards to the field. I began to catalog the other, smaller weeds that glazed green the ground. Which ones grew in atop clods of earth & which in the furrows? Another catalog ran simultaneously, this one marking all the beetles, worms, lizards and other creepers & crawlers that lurked under just about every leaf. Everywhere I looked there was something to new to notice, to ponder, to learn. I can’t say I totally lost myself in the work – it was still hot & a serious thirst was building – but I was at ease and back to enjoying the process, and this time through direct engagement rather than conceptualization. Eventually I wandered back towards my house for shade and water.
Soaking with sweat, hands stained brown from the weeds, I looked a strange sight to my Thai workers who’d been working away on the house in relative comfort. Sin, my foreman, sat down next to me and lit up a cheroot. After a suitable interval of small talk, carefully calculated I’m sure, he broached the subject.
“You know, I could get some villagers to come do the weeding for you,” he said. We both looked out over the field. “About three of them should do the trick. They could finish the whole field in a day.” I was mulling over the idea when he added, “It’s best if I find some women to do this job for you.”
I turned to him. “Why’s that?”
He laughed. “Men are hot headed. They think too much about finishing and get annoyed. Women are more calm. They’ll be happy to keep their heads down and just work.”
I laughed in return. “Good idea.” So the question of the weeds was then settled, but as often seems to happen, Sin had given me good food for thought. He returned to work and I sat there thinking. I recognized the hothead in myself for sure, the “man” who was overly focused on the “purpose” of my work. But I also saw how I’d moved beyond that. From Sin’s point of view you could say that I used occasion to get in touch with the “woman” in me, who was much more present and, crucially, patient.
I liked this thought and so decided to play with it further. If I wanted to use the magic number three as a template, what then was the missing element? Masculine, feminine and… what? It didn’t take me long to come up with a good answer: childlike.
Before I go any further let me say: I am aware of but don’t here want to get into questions of gender versus biological sex and nature versus nurture with regard to children’s or adults’ behavior. Please cut me some slack. My goal is not to prescribe any roles or define norms but to describe facets of experience using a common, if flawed, shorthand.
So then the next step was this: If purpose is a defining masculine quality and patience a defining feminine one, what is the corresponding childlike quality? Again, an answer wasn’t long in coming: play. Now, by play I don’t mean frivolous messing around, or even necessarily a sense of enjoyment. It’s more an attitude of exploration, of taking up something and turning it over, looking at it with fresh eyes to see what it does & how it responds to pokings and proddings. Something like my 18 month old daughter’s approach to just about anything she can get her hands on.
So back to the big picture. Following the theme of “triple harmony”, you could say that in any person there are 3 primal capacities or natures that contribute to our actions: they are purpose, patience, and play. I call them “Inner P’s” for short and I came to them through the concepts of masculine, feminine and childlike, but I don’t think you need hold to the correspondences. The balance of inner P’s can and should change depending on the task at hand and the stage in life. Purpose, patience and play are like the adjustable legs of a tripod, and in right measure they provide a strong, sustainable basis for any work as the ground changes beneath you.
