This little trip to the coast was more of a mental struggle than I anticipated. It took me several attempts to get out here, and I was the only one stopping me. The weeks prior I had formed a nice long list of “shoulds” that I needed to be shoulding about, but felt restless, unable to sit and focus on the task at hand. I’ve noticed that list of shoulds I should be shoulding was starting to take up more space in my mind than actually Doing!
As I almost contemplated & “shoulded” myself right back home, I remembered this beautiful Taoist saying…
Thirty spokes share the hub of a wheel;
yet it is its center that makes it useful.
You can mould clay into a vessel;
yet, it is its emptiness that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows from the walls of a house;
but the ultimate use of the house
will depend on that part where nothing exists.
Therefore, something is shaped into what is;
but its usefulness comes from what is not.
Tao Te Ching
My list of shoulds were long, but I knew the usefulness would come from the emptiness that I was inevitably avoiding- focusing solely on the thirty spokes and not at all on the center holding it all together.
We tend to put so much pressure on those 30 spokes and never really thank the center for all its done, let alone acknowledge it. So for all the spokes, I want to thank the emptiness for providing what the spokes simply could not, and that’s nothingness.
