Outrageous fortune indeed.

To my love:

It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards. A proposition which, the more it is subjected to careful thought, the more it ends up concluding precisely that life at any given moment cannot really ever be fully understood; exactly because there is no single moment where time stops completely in order for me to take position [to do this]: going backwards.

~Søren Kierkegaard

Wu wei is often translated as “not doing,” “not acting,” or “not interfering,” but “not forcing” seems to me to hit the nail on the head. We never force a lock because we will bend the key or break the lock. Instead we jiggle it until it turns. Wu wei means always acting in accord with the pattern of things as they exist. When we follow the principle of wu wei, we do not impose any kind of extraneous force on a situation, because such force, by its very nature, is not in accord with the situation. […] This does not mean we do not cut wood, but that when we cut wood we cut along the grain, where the wood is most easily cut.

~Alan Watts

Days of slings and arrows are these. To a healthy and love-filled 2023.