Highest Good Is Like Water

Two-minute philosophy from a winter garden

Shh! I said I wouldn’t be posting during back-to-school week, and it’s a half-truth. Regular essays return next Monday.

But with beautiful snow on the ground, I wanted to send you a quick glimpse of it as I see it, aided by the small shelf of wisdom books I keep by my favorite chair.

White caps and capes in the winter garden

“Highest good is like water,” wrote the philosopher Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching:

Because water excels in benefiting the myriad creatures without contending with them and settles where none would like to be, it comes close to the way.

I often think about the image of water settling “where none would like to be.” Usually, I think it means: Don’t contend for prominent places. Work out of sight. Go for the “low” hand in high-low poker. Minimize struggle.

Today, in the snow, it is easy to see where water and only water can go.

Once the keen light brightens the brown stems of the garden, I see winter’s water fitting snug caps to the tiniest twigs. Where the tall switchgrass screened the yard in summer, now long stems bow formally under white capes.

Lao Tzu was right. The yard is covered in water. And there is no contention in sight.

Even the prickly barberry, ever ready to tangle with someone, allows water in between the red brambles. Tufts of snow and ice settle deep among the thorny stems, like beloved cats in the lap of the neighborhood curmudgeon.

Snow Moon

I hope you have an excellent week, full of inspiration and sufficient in quiet.

Thank you for reading! It is an honor to write for you.