Going with the Flow of Life Is Not What You Think

AVAlexander Volchek

When we talk about going with the flow of life, is that good or bad? How does a person understand what it means to go with the flow of life? How can understanding this actually benefit us? The thing is, people initially understand going with the flow in mental terms: being idle, being emotionless, doing nothing. But that understanding was created by society. However much a person wants to go with the flow and do nothing, they still have to do something. They have to go to work, communicate with other people, interact with the world around them. They have to interact with themselves—at the very least, with themselves. So the number-one thing in the whole idea of going with the flow of life is being aware of what is happening in that life. You go to the ocean, to the Pacific. I live thirty minutes from the Pacific Ocean—thirty to forty. There are different stretches of coast, beaches five hundred meters or a kilometer apart, where the water currents are different. At one beach, you can more or less go into the water, at least five meters or so.

It is always cold, but still. Elsewhere, going five meters into the water puts your life at risk. Why? Because of the current. At the entrance to the beach there is a sign: “Rip current at this beach. Be aware of it.” What does a rip current mean? As soon as you go in, within a minute you will be a hundred or two hundred meters from where you entered, and you will not get back. To get back, you need to understand where to swim, the technique, and the current. Going with the flow means being aware of it. If someone thinks going with the flow means doing nothing, they will die, just as they would in the ocean. They are guaranteed to die. What does “die” mean in life in this case? It does not mean they will die physically. It means they will die in terms of their consciousness. Going with the flow means being fully aware, understanding what is happening. It means understanding the current weather, wind, and waves, the water temperature, and how long you can last in it. If you enter water with a fast current, you need to understand that, at the very least, you could die because the water is cold, you will not be able to get back within twenty or thirty minutes, and that will kill you.

All right, you swim farther out, start swimming sideways, and survive. I know people who go anywhere, head into the water, and start swimming, because they can last an hour in the cold water of the Pacific. They can do it; they are prepared, their bodies are prepared, and they can last an hour. You do not need to worry about them. A person swims out, calmly swims five hundred meters sideways, and comes ashore farther along, in a place where they can get out, without reefs, rocks, or rough waves. Or at least they can wait for rescuers to arrive. And they will do it. They can; they know how to find their bearings and how to swim. Even then, it is not easy. Even the best, most capable athletes can die because they do not fully understand nature. It is nature; that is the point. It is very hard to understand. How do you understand life? How, then, do you understand life? Everything that happens is so much greater, so much broader. Nature is only one part of the spiritual world, one part of what is happening in our lives. So when you go with the flow, you need to understand where you are, your reality, your character, your own causal connections, your karma, your heredity, and what is going to happen in your life.

Understand why these people are in your life, why you have these parents, these children, this husband or wife, this work. What is happening? Understand where you are now, what country you live in, among what people. Understand the laws and the rules, and act accordingly. Going with the flow means being aware. There are places where, in general, you could show up naked and nothing would happen to you. In California, broadly speaking, you could do that; you could go to a theater that way. I am speaking loosely—of course there are restrictions. Someone might think, “That is California; people do that there.” That is not the point. The point is that they could. I have never seen anyone do it. But there is one thing: that person would not be punished by being hanged, for example. In some countries, if you go out naked, they will hang you. This is very important. Here, you most likely would not be punished or fined. I do not know the law on this perfectly or in full. I do not want to say what is or is not allowed, but there are many things you can do. And there are countries where they will hang you.

That is what going with the flow means: being aware of reality. Here, for example, you can go outside, walk down the street, and film everything on a video camera—everything: any property, any people, in a cafe, everywhere. Without being intrusive, pestering people, sticking a camera in their face, or getting in their way. You have the right to film everything: the police, other people. You can film it all. There are some nuances with children when it comes to filming them close up, but in general you can film everyone. There are countries where you cannot do that; in some places you will be severely punished. Olya, that is the whole point. That is going with the flow. You understand the current; you enter the river. I have been on mountain rivers and other rivers many times. You need to understand that, with a particular river, you would be better off not entering it, because you will not be able to go with the current—you will smash your head. Elsewhere, on the way to Belukha, a mountain in the Altai, there is a little pool in a river. You can go into the river there and take a dip. That, too, is going with the flow.

It means understanding what the current is like, that the water is still here. That is the point of life: you can swim here; you have the right to do it here. You have the right to rest here, to change your profession, to try something new or start a new undertaking in your life, or to interact with these people in a certain way or within a certain range of circumstances and characteristics. That is going with the flow: truly being aware of reality, being fully aware. Unfortunately, the issue is this: to go with the flow, you need to be an incredibly strong person. You need to perceive everything that is happening, because life has too many variables. We are not talking about the variables you face in the ocean. It is much easier to drown in life than in the Pacific Ocean. Much easier. This is not an abstraction; it is a fact. It is a fact of what happens, because there are too many details, too many nuances. You have to spend your entire life understanding them. Learning to swim in the Pacific is much easier than learning to swim through life. Learning to swim in a mountain river is much easier than swimming through life. So when people say “go with the flow,” it is much easier to learn to swim in a mountain river—much easier—than to interact.

To learn to interact with your child, to go with the flow of life with your child—to go with the flow of life with your child—does not mean throwing them out into the street. They are walking around covered in shit and pee, screaming, unable to find anything to eat. A bear has bitten them, and you do nothing. You simply dump them somewhere: at the nearest school, in a storage room, in a box, wherever. That is not what going with the flow means. Going with the flow means being responsible, understanding their life, understanding what kind of spiritual being this is, what kind of system has entered your spiritual life. Understanding the circumstances you are in, how you perceive this child, how you live together, what is happening in your lives, how their spiritual being is unfolding, what is taking shape in them, who they are. It is an incredible amount of work for your entire life. To go with the flow with another person, you will have to work your whole life, just as you would on a river. You cannot travel the full length of a mountain river with the current without working all the time. You will need to work all the time. All the time.

If you get into a boat—a rowboat, for example—you will have to work all the time. Some stretches will be a little calmer, others a little harder. But even where it is calm, you still have to work, because you are on the water. The boat capsizes, and you die. Someone has a seizure, an epileptic seizure in the boat, and everyone in the boat could die. Something has happened to just one other person. That is what going with the flow is: being fully aware of what is actually happening, understanding the air around you, the world around you, the current economic situation, the social phenomena of the moment. That is truly going with the flow. Not shutting yourself off from it, not saying, “I am already grown up; I am old; I will not understand anymore.” Or, “Oh, I am still young. I have my whole life ahead of me.” Then going with the flow becomes very difficult, impossible to do. Because to go with the flow, you have to be incredibly joyful and developed. You see, I even stumbled from “developed” into “joyful.” A developed person—and certainly a joyful one too. Because development without joy is impossible. Development without joy, and joy without development, are impossible. Fundamentally impossible.

Then you can arrive at an incredibly deep understanding of these social phrases and sayings and, for the first time, take responsibility for your own life—truly take responsibility.