Edoardo Ballerini

I always know when somebody has an insightful suggestion for me because I want to punch them in the face. It’s likely generated from the frustrated realization that (a) it’s a good idea, (b) I should have figured it out myself, and (c) I’d rather not examine that particular aspect of my life. So when somebody told me recently to “allow space for the abundance that surrounds me,” and I subsequently wanted to toss her off a rooftop, I figured there must be something to it.

(Before anyone call the authorities, rest assured that she is fine. Only my ego was wounded in the exchange.)

Part of my meditative practice teaches me to observe what is happening, and nothing more. It has a remarkable effect. It allows for what Wallace Stevens observed in his beautiful “things are as they are on the blue guitar” line.

I’ve struggled to apply this to the creative process. I not only wait for perfection, but I push and pull at every little thought that arises, to the point of exhaustion, ensuring that any riches that might have been working will be reduced to an unworkable chaos before sunset. It’s woefully obtuse…

Ever the man of science (not really), I put the idea to a test. The last couple of weeks I let go in a couple of areas I had been hammering the stone to no avail, and I waited for the abundance to take over and flourish. And by some strange miracle, it did.

People I’d been waiting on to do things… did them. People I hadn’t asked things of… offered things. People wrote to say kind things. Out of the emptiness came light, all on its own. What’s more, the nagging frustrations that arise with every bump in the road subsided more quickly. The thoughts, like butterflies, flitted off in their own time, and in their absence, came abundance.

I was reminded of the poet Lau Tzu’s words:

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try the world is beyond the winning.”

Indeed.