THE FAN BLADE

There is a strange phenomenon that occurs when a fan moves fast enough.

The blade is moving constantly, but to the eye, it begins to look still.

The faster it moves, the less movement appears to be happening.

Perhaps people are like that too.

Some people carry their lives through visible effort. You can see the transitions, the pauses, the depletion, the recovery. The movement announces itself.

But there is another kind of movement.

A person can carry so continuously that the movement disappears.

Responsibility is picked up before it has time to become a burden.

Problems are encountered and solved.

What needs to be done is done.

One thing becomes integrated into another, and then another.

There is no dramatic announcement of the weight.

There is simply motion.

And perhaps this is why giving and problem-solving can become such a powerful combination.

For some people, giving costs energy.

For others, giving creates energy.

For some people, solving a problem is an expenditure.

For others, solving the problem creates order, and order creates satisfaction.

The more there is to carry, the more the system has to integrate.

And eventually, from the outside, it looks like nothing is happening.

But that apparent stillness is not stillness.

It is velocity.

I have sometimes wondered why I don't experience my life as a collection of things I am carrying.

Perhaps it is because I don't carry them as separate weights.

I integrate them.

I don't give when I have enough left to give.

I give.

I don't solve problems because I have spare capacity.

I solve them because that is what I do when something is mine to solve.

There is no minimum me.

There is no maximum me

There is simply me, fully engaged.

And perhaps that is why I can look effortless even to myself.

The blade doesn't experience itself as moving too fast.

It simply turns.