顺水推舟 (Pushing a boat along the stream)

顺着水流的方向推船.比喻顺着某个趋势或某种方便说话办事

"Go with the flow" or "pushing a boat along the stream" is the rough translation of the above Chinese phrase (notice they're mostly 4 characters long, a Chinese tradition that's spread to other Asian languages too, the stellar mix of conciseness and deeper meaning has been rhythmically summarized into 4 words, there's a poetic and smooth quality to it when saying them in Chinese.

Anyway, just like responding to a strong wind, sometimes you just need to keep going where life takes you. Today I ran near one of my favorite spots when training for the marathon, the Ballona Creek bike path stretching from near downtown Culver City, crossing through Marina Del Rey, running straight to the ocean. In L.A. you hear of Griffith Park, Elysian Park, Griffith Observatory, Santa Monica, all those nice scenic routes, but you rarely hear about Ballona Creek, a truly underrated path that has a river running towards the ocean (I've often waxed poetically about wanting a river to cut through, this is the closest thing to it......the river runs into Marina Del Rey and then into the Pacific Ocean and attracts plenty of wildlife from ducks to seagulls to very large, almost Pierre-the-Pelican-scary size pelicans.

I didn't plan of running all the way to the ocean today, but the thing about running and letting your feet take you where you want to go is, you just go with the flow, and it's much easier going along the stream than against it. There was actually one boat I saw that turned on its side because of the strong wide, but nothing encapsulates that concept more than a sailboat......just go with the flow. The universe (or your own instincts) have a way of taking over and allowing you to see get to your goal, and see some really cool stuff along the way. I've actually never sailed a sailboat because of my aversion to small wobbly boats, but I imagine piloting a sailboat has that sort of "go where the wind takes you kind of feeling"----- and why you hear so many people lost in the middle of the ocean on a sailboat and needing to be rescued..........the universe has a way of reminding you who's boss, how big it is, and no matter who you are or how busy your life is, that you can disappear into the universe away from everything for awhile.

Real life application: learned Japanese and the grammatical structure, already know Chinese.......might as well keep the boat going and learn Korean.


Anyway, today I reminded myself how much I like running in the great outdoors and found a great deal of luck and success pushing my own boat (my legs and body) literally along the stream that the universe led me. (I literally looked up this word a few days ago and I guess my subconscious pushed me towards going towards the "stream" in L.A. too, so it works on a mental level too). Sometimes it's just good to let yourself be a sailboat and sail towards the open ocean.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan