Photo and Blog a Day Challenge-Day 13/28: Water

"Be water, my friend." -Bruce Lee

I've had quite a relationship with water in my three decades on this Earth (which is covered mostly water, by the way).

1. Lived on both coasts.
2. Joined the Navy.
3. Stationed on and deployed with a submarine (Hooyah, Rickover!)
4. I love the beach (fitting with #1).
5. I love pool parties.
6. I drink a lot of water.
7. I really enjoy taking a shower.
8. I passed my swim qual in Navy boot camp.
9. I successfully completed a month-long swimming unit in high school.
10. I can't swim.
11. One of my biggest fears is drowning.

Ok, so maybe #10 and #11 aren't exactly in support of my overall positive relationship with dihydrogen monoxide, but hey, you take the good with the bad, right? You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette, so they say.

But yes, water and I get along more times than not. A lot of people do. Brad Paisley even wrote a song about it. And not in a metaphorical, subliminal way, either. Here's the video for the song entitled, "Water," shocker, right?

If you've been following my blogging journey, you've noticed there have been a few posts about snow.
Snow.
More snow.
Snowflakes.

I wanted to flip it up today, so I give you...ice.

Driving around seeing all the icicles on houses has been so intriguing, awe inspiring, and scary. A few days ago, a co-worker had told me that the icicles on the back of the building had been growing, so during my lunch today, I drove around to check em out for myself

Whoa, right? Here are a few more.

And although the logical part of my brain can piece together exactly how this happens, I couldn't help but stare at them and be amazed.

Water. Like Bruce Lee said, it can take the form of any vessel that it fills. But what if there is no vessel? Then it flows as freely as it can...until it freezes. And then it flows again when it thaws...until it freezes it again. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Applying that to ourselves, we can flow into the vessels that we fill. Households, schools, jobs, religions, communities, and so on. But when there is no vessel, where do we go? When do we freeze? When do we stay liquid? Do we become dirty by picking up filth from our environment? Or even when it is added to us?

We can filter things out, thaw, freeze, flow, and spread. We can lose droplets in cracks and grow in collaboration with others.

These icicles back here are like people. These moderately scary, but wholly awesome ice sculptures persuaded by the construction of these buildings are like each of us. We flow, we grow, we freeze, we flow, we spread, we mix, we nourish, evaporate, and flow once again.

It's as simple as Master Bruce said, "Be water, my friend."

Diving into snow

Looking out the window of my kitchen this morning, I was drawn in by the erratic paths individual snowflakes fly. Yes, we’ve heard it all before…

“People are like snowflakes, unique and beautiful in their own way.”

But what I saw led me to these subsequent thoughts:

Snowflakes are like people in many ways, but obviously not completely.

We travel individual paths, but not completely out of our own control. (At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.)

A gentle breeze may blow us around, dusting the earth with wintry highlights, but as we accumulate, we can bring destruction upon things that are not ours.

When seen from inside, behind the safety of a window, we are safe from the masses and are protected from the bitter cold they are flown in with.

When molded and forced to collaborate by children, artists, and free spirits, snowmen are created, erecting something joyful for others to appreciate.

Snowflakes only exist in certain conditions, in select parts of the world, during specific times of year. Some people feel they can only survive in certain conditions, whether it’s year-long tropics or seasonal, metropolitan or secluded.

We’re part of a cycle that, as many understand, to be finite and quantifiable, but can be viewed as snowflakes do, recycling over centuries, traveling great distances between continents and oceans, sharing the same planet that prehistoric creatures did and future generations will to come.

Sometimes, if you jump early, you can be smothered by those that follow blindly, or even by chance, but in someone or something else’s search for life or food, you can be unearthed, discovered, and redirected.

White is a color of purity for many people, and as the white snow falls to the ground, cars drive by, and dirt is mixed in, leaving it dingy and different, but not necessarily wrong or repulsive. As people, we enter the world without judgments, needing security and food, but as we travel our own roads and are kicked around by other travelers and become dirty ourselves, we can appear repulsive to others, but we are still ourselves.

And when the sun shines again we have lived through our time. Hopefully we have brought joy to others, but there will undoubtedly be those numbers that cause pain, suffering, and hardship for many they don’t know.

Bruce Lee said, "Be water, my friend" and snow is still water with a little persuasion from the elements, so I think we’re still capable of doing some good.

Not a promise: a proclamation...of water.

I like reading blogs and articles. There's so much information out there (some more helpful than others), and I thoroughly enjoy spending (way too much time) reading people's opinions. Although reading can help me become a better writer, there is one other thing that carries a greater magnitude than reading other people's work--writing it myself.

As of July 1, 2011, I will blog everyday. Whether it's a quotation I overheard that day, a musing I had on my walk home from work, or a spark that ignited as I murder my lunch, I'll blog something. Obviously, some entries will be more in depth than others, but if I don't make myself write, I'll be one of "those people" that criticize other people's work without having any to show for it themselves. Boo "those people".

I watched a video, a buddy of mine shared with Stumble Upon today with a "lost interview" of the late Bruce Lee. Obviously, somebody found it. In it, he says, "now water can flow, or it can crash...be water, my friend." I had to go back and listen to it again, but that rocked me.

I just gradated from college, and in my head-down, bulldog-charging-forward motion to avoid dipping into a financial crisis, I've become rigid. As much as I enjoy the structure of professional worlds, my choice to enter a creative industry requires personal fluidity. I must find that balance of chaos and order, organic and calculated, Megadeth and Marvin Gaye.

Thank you, Mr. Lee. I will be water.