Cups and Jars

Bruce Lee once said “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

What's in your cups and jars?

To overthink to a high degree and bounce off his Lee's use of the words cup, bottle, and teapot, I believe there's a human application to each object beyond it's intended purpose. All around you are the simple objects we use for various purposes; forks, spoons, knives, bottles. And beyond the thing they're used for, you typically don't really see them as anything else. As strange as this surely sounds, the items in our ever expanding list of stuff speak to our character. You can't compare a human being to a mere object of course, though we do that enough without much thought or care.

But like a cup or a jar the outer shell which makes up our body and our mind is strong and sturdy, yet vulnerable and quite fragile. A vessel to be filled with something good or toxic. And when life comes and shakes or shoves the shelf we sat on, the jar falls, breaks a little or a lot, and spews whatever it was filled with all over. All who step in the resulting mess will carry a trace of it on them for a while. And quite often, your mess becomes theirs.

How many times haven't you had your favorite drink out of the ugliest looking cup, or eaten a dish that looked and smelled gross, yet tastes amazing and actually satisfied your hunger? How many times have you reached for what you thought was your drink, left with someone who appeared trustworthy, only to find out they spit in it or spiked it? How often has someone else's words become your thoughts, and how often have you played a character of yourself based on someone else? Like hiding inside a big jar. You might be hidden for a time, but something else always gets poured in.

The question of where wisdom and intelligence ultimately comes from is another matter entirely, but for our purposes here lets stick with the fact it's passed down through generations, individually or collectively. One generation's thoughts and habits become another one's customs in the same manner people adopt the thoughts and feelings of their heroes. Knowing this should make you realize we're all responsible for each other, not only in the here and now but potentially for untold generations. The contents of the cup of our heart and the jar of our minds will find their way out one way or another. Will we be proud or ashamed of what we've spewed out, and dare to still say no one could've predicted what it resulted in?

Will one generation continue to disparage the other, claiming no responsibility and shifting blame? Will we continue to actively fill our hearts and minds, our cups and jars, with nothing but bitterness, lust, greed, and anger, and yet be so surprised by the result? Will we treat the next generation like a used car or a trophy, trashing it once it doesn't do what we want? Will we become so selfish we destroy ourselves and others? Cut off our nose to spite our own face?

So with your next cup of whatever, or the next time you have to pour liquid into some sort of bowl, basin, jar, etc, ask yourself what sort of things have been poured into you. Are you a nice well crafted jar, holding toxic sludge inside? Or do you already know what you have inside, good or bad, despite how you make look to other people? What is YOUR outpouring and how well do people receive it? When life comes and knocks you off the shelf, and people find out who you really are, will your life give nourishment or poison?

What's in your cups and jars?