Dynamic balance

For me, the ideal conditions for writing lie somewhere between having no schedule and having a strict one.

Expectations create tension, which can block motivation and creativity.

On the other hand, without deadlines, I might never write a thing… ideas would come and vanish as one distraction after another stole my attention.

It’s not just writing. The same dynamic seems to apply to other creative projects, spiritual practices, physical exercise, social engagement, and all manner of work and life chores.

Plan too much, and the streams and bursts of authenticity will have no room to get through. Plan too little, and nothing purposeful will get done.

Peak productivity (quality, not just quantity) and maximum enjoyment of life happen in a dance between flexibility and rigidity.

Out days and in days

There are days when putting energy and ideas out into the world feels easy.

And then there are days when it doesn't.

The "good life" is a matter of following the natural out and in. And not expecting or forcing something different.

Out days need in days for rest and storing up. And in days need out days to release accumulation.

It gets tricky in practice, of course.

Bosses, customers, administrators, and neighbors expect us to show up no matter what.

But the place to start is self acknowledgment:

I'm having an out day...

or

I'm having an in day...

...and the other will come around again shortly.

Terrain and germs

The origins of Chinese Medicine predate germ theory (which took hold in Europe and the Americas in the late 19th Century) by at least 2000 years.

Across that time, the question of What causes diseases that come into the body from the outside? was answered in several different ways. First it was ghosts and disgruntled ancestors, then it was various climatic factors (such as wind and cold), then it was specific infectious agents of unknown form, and finally it was microbes (influenced by the conclusions of western science).

Persistent throughout this history has been the observation that most diseases of exterior origin seem to affect the weak more than the strong. Healthy bodies are not hospitable environments for most pathogens - this is an essential Chinese Medicine doctrine.

Echos of this idea may be heard today in the mutterings of people who believe themselves to be proponents of terrain theory.

The gist seems to be, infections in general don't pose a risk to healthy people who have optimized their internal "terrain", especially their immune system.*

Amongst other things, this belief is being used to diminish the perceived value of vaccines and to promote immune-enhancing measures, such as vitamins, for serious contagions, such as measles.

Traditional Chinese Medicine should have none of that.

Toward the end of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) in China, physician Wu You-Xing posited that a category of disease-causing agents he called li qi (pestilential qi) was responsible for epidemics, including the one that wiped out his entire village in 1642.

Li qi were especially strong pathogens that could be transmitted one person to another and cause serious disease regardless of body constitution. No one was safe. And li qi diseases were often very hard (sometimes impossible) to treat.

His doctrine, which arguably prefigured western germ theory, inspired one of two immense bodies of scholarship which together formed the foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine clinical practice.

The goal of Chinese Medicine has always been to understand and solve the problems of our complex reality, not a quaint dreamscape.

A lush terrain will save you. Except when it won't.

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*Actual terrain theory, which was born from the ideas of French scientist Antoine Béchamp and his bitter rivalry with Louis Pasteur, is more complex than this. Some modern proponents I've read either don't understand all of it or don't care to mention it.