If nothing is an option, do that. But furlough the head. Do it with your whole heart, as if you had 90 seconds to live—alert, aware, not thinking. This is a profound and dynamic state. Laozi: “When nothing is done, nothing remains undone.”
Without a centre, there is no circle. No perimeter, no wheel, nothing manifest. Lao Tzu: “Hold fast to the centre.”
The late great jazz drummer Jerry Granelli called it “nowness.” It’s when our experience of the present moment deepens to the point where the twinned impediments of past and future cease to matter.
“I was just thinking that!” This is not a coincidence; it’s a commonplace. Our minds are linked as trees are by their root systems. We gather in arenas to savour our sameness. We watch television. We look at our devices. We’re stunned into silence by an original thought.
We are exhorted to think outside the box. Unfortunately, thinking is the box.
Men's Work 