Becoming "like water" means simply to stop fighting gravity.
When you stop fighting gravity, you inherit the Earth's gravitational attraction to yourself. Magnetic is an understatement.
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This reminds me of your "a tree with a stiff branch breaks" tweet.
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It’s essential Taoist thought—both analogies come from there. Highly recommend getting familiar with it: it’s about learning *from* nature instead of learning *about* nature.
Some books if you’re interested:
- Tao Te Ching
- Zhuangzi
- Liezi
- Tao: The Watercourse Way
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This can be unpacked in so many interesting ways.
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These books are of their nature such that of them, one can never say “I have read it.”
You’ve glanced at it, projected to it whatever was on your mind at the time; but you have never read—or fully comprehended—it.
Quite like nature itself: we look at it, wonder what it’s about, then project stories into it that our mind is contemporarily able to conceive (“it’s the work of God(s),” “it’s a simulation,” “it’s a fight for survival” etc.).
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But we never get at a satisfying understanding—because it has nothing to say, nothing to teach. It simply is; we just exercise our minds.
And what Taoism aims at is simply to get us out of the fetters of that cycle, and back in touch with reality and nature directly.
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