351: The rivers

Monday Musings: The Rivers

The river did not know how did it really start. It had an idea about where did it start but was not sure of how exactly did it start. The closest she came to answering that question was that the womb of the glacier had started to melt and she had begun the slow march downwards. Her quest to answer the question of how did she really start came to a frozen halt. Thereafter she also hesitated to ask the question why did she started off. In her mind there was no point asking that question. I guess that is the story of our lives. Since we don’t usually have an answer to these questions, we often stop asking them.

Anyways, once she slowly started to escape out of the frozen confines, she started to make her way down. She was tentative and unsure. She would test every rock, every gradient, every nook and every gap. She would begin by giving all a friendly nudge and if they would not listen sometimes a violent push too. Some would not relent because they would too big and obstinate. She was the newbie and those rocks had been around for a while. So she would circle her way around those who obstructed her flow. She was young and she had no time for debates. She would just circle around and move on, leaving the big rock exasperated and grumpy – who perhaps was looking for a tougher and a longer fight.

She would discover soon that those who do not have the freedom to move, or have a deep seated fear of moving on, or are just unable to move, or perhaps lack the imagination to move, prefer longer fights, even with smaller foes – for that is the only excitement in their lives. These small skirmishes are what brings them some semblance of joy in their otherwise stale lives. Those who can flow and move on, must be quick to identify this and just maneuver and move on. The young river was a smart cookie and that is exactly what she would do – avoid and move on. Her moving on was more important to her than staying back to win the fight.

The river had no idea of the terrain or the flow in her initial days. All she was content was flowing down. She was not encumbered by the righteousness of a path – or ‘the’ path. There was nothing in her mind called ‘the’ path; all she was concerned was ‘a’ path. Anything that allowed her to move was good enough. In any case the terrain she was flowing down from did not allow her the luxury of dealing with questions of righteousness. There was no time for it. Survival was more important for her. She was too engrossed with the idea of flowing. She was sure that she was right. She would deal with this question with a little less cockiness and less sure footedness later in her course. For now, being sure was more important.
She had gathered a great deal of speed and in places, ferocity while she negotiated the turns and slopes of the mountains she had passed through. While she credited herself with her speed but she also knew in her heart that sometimes our speed is also courtesy the terrains we run through. Not everything is our credit. She would be humbled very soon when she would hit the plains. In a lot of ways, she was not controlling her flow – the terrain was. She was just arrogant enough to take the credit.

The change of flow of rivers do not announce themselves. All of a sudden the terrain changed and she was in the plains. Everything became excruciatingly slow. The sharp turns gave ways to boring straight march ahead. Meandering became lazy at best. Gone were the turbulent flow, the impatient jumps and the effervescent march ahead. If she was to continue to march ahead, she needed poise, composure and patience. The terrain would not be of too much help. Her own resolve, despite the languid pace and rather inadequate joys of milestones, was the fuel of her journey. She was on her own now. Many rivers give up at this stage. They are not able to deal with the rhythms of slowness. Slow has its own beauty. It has its own cadence. Slow gives you time – time you can use to either ask fresh questions or take a hard look at your old answers. Slow allows pauses. A pause is often underrated. We must celebrate pauses more often.

The river which finally reaches the sea is the one which has survived the monotony of the plains. In many ways it is the one which above everything else – above talent, capability and origins, had that one thing that brought it this long – Resilience. Staying put to the task of flowing is the only thing that matters.
Rivers need to have many facets and they must be good at all those facets if they want to have a rewarding run – in the hills powered by brute energy and in the plains blessed with a matured doggedness and finally at the mouth of the sea an almost spiritual maturity on her good fortune.

It could have been very different. It can still be very different.