Swimming Upstream Quotes

When I’m writing my own stuff, it’s like swimming upstream. Or … falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.

I think being yourself—your true, entire self—is always going to feel like you’re swimming upstream.” “Yeah,” she said. “But if the last few years with you have been any indication, I think it also feels like taking your bra off at the end of the day.

Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.

Independent will is our capacity to act. It gives us the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to rewrite our scripts, to act based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance.

Some fish love to swim upstream. Some people love to overcome challenges.

Salmon. Salmon, salmon, salmon, salmon. I eat so much salmon at these weddings, twice a year I get this urge to swim upstream.

I think being yourself—your true, entire self—is always going to feel like you’re swimming upstream.

what i need is traveling minds talktouch kisses spittouch you swimming upstream.

I read my books with diligence, and mounting skill, and gathering certainty. I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life.

The more helpful our phones get, the harder it is to be ourselves. For everyone out there fighting to write idiosyncratic, high-entropy, unpredictable, unruly text, swimming upstream of spell-check and predictive auto-completion: Don't let them banalize you. Keep fighting.

If life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming, or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream.

Great Brown Bear is walking with us, Salmon swimming upstream with us, as we stroll a city street.

I network like a salmon in a bear costume. Why swim upstream when the honeybee has all the flowers? Is anything more romantic than roses on a grave?

I know that life is busy and hard and that there's crushing pressure to just settle down and get a real job and khaki pants and a haircut. But don't. Please don't. Please keep believing that life can be better, brighter, broader because of the art that you make. Please keep demonstrating the courage that it takes to swim upstream in a world that prefers putting away for retirement to putting pen to paper, that chooses practicality over poetry, that values you more for going to the gym than going to the deepest places in your soul. Please keep making your art for people like me, people who need the magic and imagination and honesty of great art to make the day-to-day world a little more bearable.

My mom always told me that when you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, the universe will help you out. It may throw you a few curveballs, but they’re all in the name of a good cause. Once you leave your path behind, that’s when you start swimming upstream. It’s good advice.

Some people swim as fast as they can. Faster than most. They can never stop and rest for long, and they never reach their destination, for they are constantly swimming upstream. But eventually they become strong, in their own way.

One can never swim upstream to a prosper future if they continue to drown in their past.

Yes, New York is exhausting. Yes, there are millions of people all swimming upstream, but you’re also in it together.

We are swimming upstream against a great torrent of disorganization...In this, our main obligation is to establish arbitrary enclaves of order and system...It is the greatest possible victory to be, to continue to be, and to have been. No defeat can deprive us of the success of having existed for some moment of time in a universe that seems indifferent to us. This is no defeatism...The declaration of our own nature and the attempt to build up an enclave of organization in the face of nature's overwhelming tendency to disorder is an insolence against the gods and the iron necessity that they impose. Here lies tragedy, but here lies glory too... All this represents the manner in which I believe I have been able to add something positive to the pessimism of...the existensialists. I have not replaced the gloom of existence by a philosophy which is optimistic in any Pollyanna sense, but...with a positive attitude toward the universe and toward our life in it.

It's a strange kind of irony. The things that affect us most are the things we can't remember" (from Swimming Upstream).

Fear represents our need to hang on to the riverbank, to control outcomes, results, our lives; it swims upstream. Truth is about releasing that hold, letting go of results, and trusting the direction of Life’s current.

God will not be tolerated. He instructs us to worship and fear Him. In our world, where hundreds of things distract us from God, we have to intentionally and consistently remind ourselves of Him. Because we don’t often think about the reality of who God is, we quickly forget that He is worthy to be worshiped and loved. We are to fear Him. The answer to each of these questions is simply this: because He’s God. He has more of a right to ask us why so many people are starving. As much as we want God to explain himself to us, His creation, we are in no place to demand that He give an account to us. Can you worship a God who isn’t obligated to explain His actions to you? Could it be your arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation? If God is truly the greatest good on this earth, would He be loving us if He didn’t draw us toward what is best for us (even if that happens to be Himself)? Doesn’t His courting, luring, pushing, calling, and even “threatening” demonstrate His love? If He didn’t do all of that, wouldn’t we accuse Him of being unloving in the end, when all things are revealed? Has your relationship with God actually changed the way you live? Do you see evidence of God’s kingdom in your life? Or are you choking it out slowly by spending too much time, energy, money, and thought on the things of this world? Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. Jesus’ call to commitment is clear: He wants all or nothing. Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter. If life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming, or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream. How could we think for even a second that something on this puny little earth compares to the Creator and Sustainer and Savior of it all? True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity. When you are truly in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love. You’ll drive for hours to be together, even if it’s only for a short while. You don’t mind staying up late to talk. Walking in the rain is romantic, not annoying. You’ll willingly spend a small fortune on the one you’re crazy about. When you are apart from each other, it’s painful, even miserable. He or she is all you think about; you jump at any chance to be together. There is nothing better than giving up everything and stepping into a passionate love relationship with God, the God of the universe who made galaxies, leaves, laughter, and me and you. Do you recognize the foolishness of seeking fulfillment outside of Him? Are you ready and willing to make yourself nothing? To take the very nature of a servant? To be obedient unto death? True love requires sacrifice. What are you doing right now that requires faith? God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. If one person “wastes” away his day by spending hours connecting with God, and the other person believes he is too busy or has better things to do than worship the Creator and Sustainer, who is the crazy one? Am I loving my neighbor and my God by living where I live, by driving what I drive, by talking how I talk?” If I stop pursuing Christ, I am letting our relationship deteriorate. The way we live out our days is the way we will live our lives. What will people say about your life in heaven? Will people speak of God’s work and glory through you? And even more important, how will you answer the King when He says, “What did you do with what I gave you?

I think being yourself - your true, entire self - is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream

I think being yourself—your true, entire self— is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream.

There it was again: “Came in to see us”, as if it were an enjoyable little day trip that lots of people made, just because it was such a nice place to be.

It was as if we were having two different conversations. Which wasn’t that surprising after all, as we were clearly having two entirely different experiences of breaking up. His was soft, cushioned; Jude and his friends had broken his fall. Mine was cold, empty and bereft. I was freefalling in space and time, with nobody standing by to stop me hurtling headlong into obscurity.

Synchronicities are not flukes or random events—they’re intentional reflections of our intuition working with the perfect order of all things in the unseen world. It’s why fish swim upstream, birds fly south, and bears hibernate. Everything in nature intuitively gravitates toward what best serves its growth, and that includes the human race. The only difference is that we have the choice to follow our intuition or not. So if you want your sixth sense to work, stop resisting your vibes, and change the rules you live by instead.

But as I try and understand how life works--and why some people cope better than others with adversity--I come back to something to do with saying yes to life, which is love of life, however inadequate, and love for the self, however found. Not in the me-first way that is the opposite of life and love, but with a salmon-like determination to swim upstream, however choppy upstream is, because this is your stream...

I think being yourself - your true, entire self - is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream. Page 346

I'm swimming upstream. Fighting the tide while the happy dead drift past me to the pools of ignorance.

a salmon swimming upstream, thrashing against a strong current in hopes of returning to—against all odds—the creek in which he was born.

If you want to do something differently, you’re automatically swimming upstream.

I nodded. “I think being yourself—your true, entire self—is always going to feel like you’re swimming upstream.

I think being yourself--your truly entire self--is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream.

I think being yourself - your true, entire self - is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream.

I think being yourself—your true, entire self—is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream.

I think being yourself-your true, entire self-is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream

think being yourself—your true, entire self—is always going to feel like you’re swimming upstream.

I think being yourself – your true, entire self – is always going to feel like you’re swimming upstream….but it also feels like taking your bra off at the end of the day.

While I was swimming in the pool the other day, I was thinking about all kinds of things. About you, about Helsinki. I’m not sure how to put it, maybe like swimming upstream, back to my gut feelings.” “While you were swimming?” “I can think well when I’m swimming.” Sara paused for a time, as if impressed. “Like a salmon.” “I don’t know much about salmon.” “Salmon travel a long way. Driven by something,” Sara said. “Did you ever see Star Wars?” “When I was a kid.” “May the force be with you,” she said. “So you don’t lose out to the salmon.

It seems that life is all about timing. Sometimes the timing is perfect for something you want, and the events come together perfectly. It’s at those times when you think life couldn’t get any better. Opportunities are presented to you, and you make the right decisions at the right times. You feel as if your life is gaining speed. Then suddenly, it seems that the universe changes. You’ve stepped out of the flow, or time has sped up or slowed down. You try to make things happen even though the timing is wrong, and it’s like you’re swimming upstream.

With God, all things are possible- including, dominating adulthood, swimming upstream for life, and living in light of eternity in a world that tells you all you can do is live for the moment.

We are swimming upstream against a great torrent of disorganization, which tends to reduce everything to the heat death of equilibrium and sameness.… This heat death in physics has a counterpart in the ethics of Kierkegaard, who pointed out that we live in a chaotic moral universe. In this, our main obligation is to establish arbitrary enclaves of order and system.… Like the Red Queen, we cannot stay where we are without running as fast as we can.

You're trying to swim upstream against the current. What is there about the natural flow of the river of life that has shocked you so strongly that you should want to swim against the current, even against time? You ought to know you're lost even before you begin. I don't understand you but I love you and I suppose you are obeying the law of your being.

You know the word mingyun, right? Your personal destiny in this life? Think about the two characters that make up the word. Ming is the inherent nature of your life as given to you by the gods. It's a destiny that can't be changed, the way the innate characteristics you are born with can't be changed. But what is yun? Yun is where flexibility comes in. Yun is fortune that changes with the seasons of the universe but can also turn depending on the actions you take, the choices you make. Together ming and yun make up a river, one that wants to carry you to a particular destination but moves fluidly, possibly diverging if a tree falls along its path or a large rainfall swells its banks. You, too, can change the path of the river; you can even swim upstream if you want to. Just expect it will be tiring, not as easy as moving with the current.

I think being yourself—your true, entire self—is always going to feel like you’re swimming upstream.” “Yeah,” she said. “But if the last few years with you have been any indication, I think it also feels like taking your bra off at the end of the day.

Being yourself, your true, entire self, is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream." "Yeah," she said, "but if the last few years with you have been any indication, I think it also feels like taking your bra off at the end of the day." I laughed.

I nodded. “I think being yourself—your true, entire self—is always going to feel like you’re swimming upstream.” “Yeah,” she said. “But if the last few years with you have been any indication, I think it also feels like taking your bra off at the end of the day.

The truth in God’s Word isn’t always easy to digest. It doesn’t always feel good to live like He’s called us to live. Sometimes we feel beat up and bruised as we seek to swim upstream against the culture and live out His plan, but He stretches us in ways that are ultimately for our good.

When I’m writing my own stuff, it’s like swimming upstream. Or … falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.” “Yes,” the professor said, reaching out and grasping the air in front of Cath, like she was catching a fly. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel.

Only recently the notion came to me of swimming upstream, against the tide of decay and degradation, the slow and subtle ebbing away of order; the way that every day in every way you and I are getting worse, losing ground, memory, teeth, and the battle just to stay as we are, let alone get better.

The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.

know your own truths.

Who's to say whose pain is greater, or lesser than anyone else's? We are all unique beings and pain... we must try to empathise; but never measure.

You don't love me, not really. That's just something you say to keep me loving you.

We’re humans; we’re all flawed.

The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”   —ATTRIBUTED TO BOB MARLEY

Could you imagine what a salmon would say if you asked it about its life? We think our lives are miserable? If only a salmon could speak. This fish spends half of its life swimming upstream, only to reach a body of water where either a bear catches it or it lays eggs only to die right afterward. What are we complaining about then? A salmon does what a salmon does. It doesn’t complain.

You're like a salmon swimming upstream," Lev offers. “It's inside you to do it. And it's inside me to help you get there.” “Salmon.” Cy looks thoughtful. “I once saw this poster about a salmon. It was jumping up this waterfall, see? But there was a bear at the top, and the fish, it was jumping right into the bear's mouth. The caption beneath— it was supposed to be funny—said, The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly.

Discipline comes to those with the awareness that for a kite to fly it must rise against the wind; that all good things are achieved by those who are willing to swim upstream; that drifting aimlessly through life only leads to bitterness and disappointment.

Life is desire which essentially aims at expressing itself and consequently runs on entropic energy: it reaches its aim and then dissolves, like salmon swimming upstream to procreate and then die. The wish to die can consequently be seen as the counterpart and as another expression of the desire to live intensely. The corollary is more cheerful: not only is there no dialectical tension between Eros and Thanatos, but these two entities are really just one life-force that aims to reach its own fulfilment. Posthuman vital materialism displaces the boundaries between living and dying.

Our never-ending dread has little bearing on the outside world. That is, unless and until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Enter enough relationships already certain you will make them fail and you will make some fail. Predict you will drive everyone away and some will be driven away. Inertia. Reticence. Shuffling with heads hung low, avoiding eye contact, always apologizing, seeking reassurance but no amount is ever enough. To others, these habits of ours are exhausting and boring. Life with us is lots of work, Loving those who hate themselves is like swimming upstream: often more trouble than it is worth.

I feel as though dispossessed from the semblances of some crystalline reality to which I’d grown accustomed, and to some degree, had engaged in as a participant, but to which I had, nevertheless, grown inexplicably irrelevant. But the elements of this phenomenon are now quickly dissolving from memory and being replaced by reverse-engineered Random Access actualizations of junk code/DNA consciousness, the retro-coded catalysts of rogue cellular activity. The steel meshing titters musically and in its song, I hear a forgotten tale of the Interstitial gaps that form pinpoint vortexes at which fibers (quanta, as it were) of Reason come to a standstill, like light on the edge of a Singularity. The gaps, along their ridges, seasonally infected by the incidental wildfires in the collective unconscious substrata. Heat flanks passageways down the Interstices. Wildfires cluster—spread down the base trunk Axon in a definitive roar: hitting branches, flaring out to Dendrites to give rise to this release of the very chemical seeds through which sentience is begotten. Float about the ether, gliding a gentle current, before skimming down, to a skip over the surface of a sea of deep black with glimmering waves. And then, come to a stop, still inanimate and naked before any trespass into the Field, with all its layers that serve to veil. Plunge downward into the trenches. Swim backwards, upstream, and down through these spiraling jets of bubbles. Plummet past the threshold to trace the living history of shadows back to their source virus. And acquire this sense that the viruses as a sample, all of the outlying populations withstanding: they have their own sense of self-importance, too. Their own religion. And they mine their hosts barren with the utilitarian wherewithal that can only be expected of beings with self-preservationist motives.

Over the years, I've moved through alternating cycles of personal neglect and nourishment. Sometimes it's just easier to give in and allow my life to become utterly consumed by the menial and trivial than to justify or assert my individual needs. Then, disgusted with my malaise, I rise up, spurred to action by a resurgence of energy, determined to find new ways of incorporating creative expression into my life without upsetting the domestic applecart. Like a salmon's impulse to swim upstream, the urge to improve my mind and keep my brain stimulated with fresh experiences and challenges seems innate, almost primal. Struggling for my inner life, I know I must keep oxygen flowing through my intellectual gills or I will die. Pushing against stagnation and opposing currents, I swim for mental survival, obsessed with reaching some instinctual goal and preserving my sanity.

But someday when you don’t expect it, the river may rise and carry you away to a new place. You can try to fight it, swim upstream, cling to the rocks on the shore. It’s safer to stay here, you think. To hold on to what I know and who I’m supposed to be. I had those thoughts too, before I understood we are always changing, always growing into an uncertain future. Let go, I wanted to say. Trust the water to hold you, trust yourself to float.

The current of life never stops,' he'd say. 'One can choose to swim downstream. That's an easier trip, of course, and there's always lots of company, but sooner or later it's also where all the garbage collects. 'Upstream, on the other hand, is where the water is pure. The things that make life special and worthwhile are all upstream, and to get there, you must discipline yourself to swim against the current. 'Be most aware,' Jones would say, 'of the danger of treading water. Many people believe there are three choices: swimming upstream, swimming downstream, and holding in place by treading water. 'In reality, the choices are only two. One can struggle upstream or travel downstream, but when a person chooses to stop swimming midstream, there is no such thing as holding in place. Water - like a life without purpose - always flows downstream, and everything that does not struggle from its grasp goes downstream too.

Is that how it goes with writing? That as long as you are writing, no time is ever completely in the past? Is this the fate that befalls all writers--to flow backward, in present tense, into a time of pain, like a salmon migrating upstream, swimming against the current back to where it started, struggling through waterfalls, carrying a deep wound inside its belly, risking its own life. It returns, taking the same route back, tracking its own trail, travelling that singular path.

It is not so much what people suffer that makes the world mysterious; it is rather how much they miss when they suffer. They seem to forget that even as children they made obstacles in their games in order to have something to overcome. Why, then, when they grow into man’s estate, should there not be prizes won by effort and struggle? Cannot the spirit of man rise with adversity as the bird rises against the resistance of the wind? Do not the game fish swim upstream? Must not the chisel cut away the marble to bring out the form? Must not the seed falling to the ground die before it can spring forth into life? Must not grapes be crushed that there may be wine to drink, and wheat ground that there may be bread to eat? Why then cannot pain be made redemption? Why under the alchemy of Divine Love cannot crosses be turned into crucifixes? Why cannot chastisements be regarded as penances? Why cannot we use a cross to become God-like? We cannot become like Him in His Power; we cannot become like Him in His Knowledge. There is only one way we can become like Him, and that is in the way He bore His sorrows and His Cross. And that way was with love. It is love that makes pain bearable.

If we wish to use the word “life” to cover all phenomena which locally swim upstream against the current of increasing entropy, we are at liberty to do so. However, we shall then include many astronomical phenomena which have only the shadiest resemblance to life as we ordinarily know it. It is in my opinion, therefore, best to avoid all question-begging epithets such as “life,” “soul,” “vitalism,” and the like, and say merely in connection with machines that there is no reason why they may not resemble human beings in representing pockets of decreasing entropy in a framework in which the large entropy tends to increase.

At the time, about to graduate from college, I was operating mainly on impulse, like a salmon swimming blindly upstream toward the site of his own conception. In class and seminars I would dress up these impulses in the slogans and theories that I'd discovered in books., thinking - falsely - that the slogans meant something, that they somehow made what I felt more amenable to proof. But at night, lying in bed, I would let the slogans drift away, to be replaced with a series of images, romantic images, of a past I'd never known. ... Such images became a form of prayer for me, bolstering my spirits, channeling my emotions in a way that words never could. They told me (although even this much understanding may have come later, is also a construct, containing its own falsehoods) that I wasn't alone in my particular struggles, and that communities had never been a given in this country, at least not for blacks. Communities had to be created, fought for, tended like gardens. They expanded or contracted with the dreams of men... Through organising, through shared sacrifice, membership had been earned. And because membership was earned... I believed that it might, over time, admit the uniqueness of my life. That was my idea of organising. It was a promise of redemption.

I have just drunk the waters of Changsha And come to eat the fish of Wuchang. Now I am swimming across the great Yangtze, Looking afar to the open sky of Chu. Let the wind blow and waves beat, Better far than idly strolling in a courtyard. Today I am at ease. "It was by a stream that the Master said-- 'Thus do things flow away!' " Sails move with the wind. Tortoise and Snake are still. Great plans are afoot: A bridge will fly to span the north and south, Turning a deep chasm into a thoroughfare; Walls of stone will stand upstream to the west To hold back Wushan's clouds and rain Till a smooth lake rises in the narrow gorges. The mountain goddess if she is still there Will marvel at a world so changed.

What if those teams had created a better work environment? What if they had built a climate of openness where people felt able to speak up? What if that environment made it easier to be open and honest about error? To err is human. Mistakes happen—the only real question is whether we catch, admit, and correct them. Maybe the good teams, I suddenly thought, don’t make more mistakes, maybe they report more. They swim upstream against the widely held view of error as indicative of incompetence, which leads people everywhere to suppress acknowledging (or to deny responsibility for) mistakes. This discourages the systematic analysis of mistakes that allows us to learn from them. This insight eventually led me to the discovery of psychological safety, and why it matters in today’s world.

So, you stand in the river, facing upstream with the water rushing down upon you as if it could somehow fill the hollow emptiness—and somehow, it always does. So it was one morning. I stood there, without even casting and with no trout rising, and as the water rushed past me, I knew it was washing my burdens behind me, swirling them downstream like the autumn leaves. There is a great deal about living that trout can teach us. They teach us how to keep swimming even in a steady current. Trout know that if they stop swimming, they cease to be trout and begin to become debris, floating without purpose wherever the current may take them. Trout know that if they keep swimming, facing into the current, perhaps in the eddy of a rock, all that they need to truly live will eventually come to them. I learn a great deal from trout.

She stood on the willow bank. It was bright as mid-afternoon in the openness of the water, quiet and peaceful. She took off her clothes and let herself into the river. She saw her waist disappear into reflection less water; it was like walking into sky, some impurity of skies. All seemed one weight, one matter -- until she put down her head and closed her eyes and the light slipped under her lids, she felt this matter a translucent one, the river, herself, the sky all vessels which the sun filled. She began to swim in the river, forcing it gently, as she would wish for gentleness to her body. Her breasts around which she felt the water curving were as sensitive at that moment as the tips of wings must feel to birds, or antennae to insects. She felt the sand, grains intricate as little cogged wheels, minute shells of old seas, and the many dark ribbons of grass and mud touch her and leave her, like suggestions and withdrawals of some bondage that might have been dear, now dismembering and losing itself. She moved but like a cloud in skies, aware but only of the nebulous edges of her feeling and the vanishing opacity of her will, the carelessness for the water of the river through which her body had already passed as well as for what was ahead. The bank was all one, where out of the faded September world the little ripening plums started. Memory dappled her like no more than a paler light, which in slight agitations came through leaves, not darkening her for more than an instant. the iron taste of the old river was sweet to her, though. If she opened her eyes she looked at blue bottles, the skating waterbugs. If she trembled, it was at the smoothness of a fish or a snake that crossed her knees. In the middle of the river, whose downstream or upstream could not be told by a current, she lay on her stretched arm, not breathing, floating. Virgie had reached the point where in the next moment she might turn into something without feeling it shock her. She hung suspended in the Big Black River as she would know how to hang suspended in felicity. Far to the west, a cloud running fingerlike over the sun made her splash the water. She stood, walked along the soft mud of the bottom, and pulled herself out of the water by a willow branch, which like a warm rain brushed her back with its leaves. The moon, while she looked into the high sky, took its own light between one moment and the next. A wood thrush, which had begun to sing, hushed its long moment and began again. Virgie put her clothes back on. She would have given much for a cigarette, always wishing for a little more of what had just been. (from the short story The Wanderers)

But as the train pulls away, a woman comes to the back door of one of the houses—just the figure of a woman, for you cannot make out the face—and she has a pan in her hands and she flings the water out of the pan to make a sudden tattered flash of silver in the light. She goes back into the house. To what is in the house. The floor of the house is thin against the bare ground and the walls and the roof are thin against all of everything which is outside, but you cannot see through the walls to the secret to which the woman has gone in. The train pulls away, faster now, and the woman is back there in the house, where she is going to stay. She’ll stay there. And all at once, you think that you are the one who is running away, and who had better run fast to wherever you are going because it will be dark soon. The train is going pretty fast now, but its effort seems to be through a stubborn cloying density of air as though an eel tried to swim in syrup, or the effort seems to be against an increasing and implacable magnetism of earth. You think that if the earth should twitch once, as the hide of a sleeping dog twitches, the train would be jerked over and piled up and the engine would spew and gasp while somewhere a canted-up wheel would revolve once with a massive and dreamlike deliberation. But nothing happens, and you remember that the woman had not even looked up at the train. You forget her, and the train goes fast, and is going fast when it crosses a little trestle. You catch the sober, metallic, pure, late-light, unriffled glint of the water between the little banks, under the sky, and see the cow standing in the water upstream near the single leaning willow. And all at once you feel like crying. But the train is going fast, and almost immediately whatever you felt is taken away from you, too.

Twenty minutes later the three girls rented a small motorboat at Campbell’s Landing. The craft was old and the engine clattered and threw oil, but it was the only boat available. “Lucky we all know how to swim,” Bess said with some misgiving as they pulled away from the dock. “I have a feeling this old tub leaks and may sink before we go very far.” “We’ll be all right if George keeps busy with the bailer!” Nancy laughed, heading the craft upstream. The river was wide near town, but the upper reaches were narrow and twisted and turned at such sharp angles that fast travel was out of the question. At the wheel, Nancy kept an alert watch for shoals. Water was slowly seeping in at the bow. “It’s really pretty out here, but so wild,” Bess commented, her gaze wandering along the solid line of trees fringing the shores. “Better forget the scenery for a while,” Nancy advised, “and give George a hand with the bailing. If you don’t, our shoes will be soaked.

Though we recognize distinct cultural differences across time and place, the commonalities warrant our attention. To think about how these ancient commonalities need to be differentiated from our modern ways of thinking, we can use the metaphor of a cultural river, where the currents represent ideas and conventional ways of thinking. Among the currents in our modern cultural context we would find fundamentals such as rights, privacy, freedom, capitalism, consumerism, democracy, individualism, globalism, social media, market economy, scientific naturalism, an expanding universe, empiricism, and natural laws, just to name a few. As familiar as these are to us, such ways of thinking were unknown in the ancient world. Conversely, the ancient cultural river had among their shared ideas currents that are totally foreign to us. Included in the list we would find fundamental concepts such as community identity, the comprehensive and ubiquitous control of the gods, the role of kingship, divination, the centrality of the temple, the mediatory role of images, and the reality of the spirit world and magic. It is not easy for us to grasp their shape or rationale, and we often find their expression in texts impenetrable. In today’s world people may find that they dislike some of the currents in our cultural river and wish to resist them. Such resistance is not easy, but even when we might occasionally succeed, we are still in the cultural river—even though we may be swimming upstream rather than floating comfortably on the currents. This was also true in the ancient world. When we read the Old Testament, we may find reason to believe that the Israelites were supposed to resist some of the currents in their cultural river. Be that as it may (and the nuances are not always easy to work with), they remain in that ancient cultural river. We dare not allow ourselves to think that just because the Israelites believed themselves to be distinctive among their neighbors that they thought in the terms of our cultural river (including the dimensions of our theology). We need to read the Old Testament in the context of its own cultural river. We cannot afford to read instinctively because that only results in reading the text through our own cultural lenses. No one reads the Bible free of cultural bias, but we seek to replace our cultural lenses with theirs. Sometimes the best we can do is recognize that we have cultural lenses and try to take them off even if we cannot reconstruct ancient lenses. When we consider similarities and differences between the ancient cultural river and our own, we must be alert to the dangers of maintaining an elevated view of our own superiority or sophistication as a contrast to the naïveté or primitiveness of others. Identification of differences should not imply ancient inferiority. Our rationality may not be their rationality, but that does not mean that they were irrational. Their ways of thinking should not be thought of as primitive or prehistorical. We seek to understand their texts and culture, not to make value judgments on them.

Life is a river of ordeals that makes men swim upstream so that they may chase after their dreams, and whoever refuses to swim gets washed away downstream and be dragooned to drown to its defeatist depths.

It’s far from easy, but we can start trusting the currents of life: swimming upstream and downstream with curiosity and grace. We have to be honest—not just about what we want, but what we are actually prepared to create. Every person who takes action to create a healthier life for ourselves shifts the collective environment.

The salmon is a symbol of prosperity and determination to the Coast Salish tribes, the band of tribes in the Pacific Northwest of which the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe is a part. She defies nature, swimming upstream to provide for the people of the land. Yet she must sacrifice herself to give that abundance to others. Her determination comes at a deep personal cost.

Letting Go of Attachment to Circumstance What if experiences and situations are just passing moments, like clouds moving through the sky? What if they are just what’s happening, and you are just watching it all? What if everything will pass—the good and the bad? What if everything just is what it is beyond labeling and judging? What if none of it defines you? It is impossible to own a moment, a situation, or experience, yet our ego can’t help but cling and grasp. By becoming attached to our experiences as part of our identity, the ego causes suffering by blocking life’s natural flow—like trying to swim upstream. Whether it’s being stuck in the past or waiting for the future, we miss out on now.

When you find yourself swimming upstream for the sake of God's Word, you're definitely on course. The problem is most people would rather be comfortable than obedient, because true kindness must be an action, not a reaction.

But I know how much you love it when I write about you,” he teases, squeezing my fingers. “So this is my heart given to you in the words I wrote.” His smile fades until his mouth rests in a sober line. “My heart given to you completely,” he adds so softy, I’m not sure the congregation hears before he launches into what he has prepared. “It’s called ‘Still.’” You ask me today if I love you, if I take you as my own to have and to hold, and my heart replies yes. Always, evermore, even after. Still. Not just today before a crowd, but when we are alone, you and I, through years, through pain, My heart will answer again and again, still. Ask me in a million seconds, ask me in a billion years, Do you love me? And I will say still. Ask me when we toil, when we rest, when we fuss and fight. With the taste of anger burning my lips, I will say still. Ask me when your belly is full like the moon, and our love has stretched your body with my child, leaving your skin, once flawless, now silvered, traced, scarred, I will worship you. My eyes will never stray. My heart will never wander, gladly leashed to you all my days. I am fixed on you. Our love is a great river, the Amazon, the Nile, the river Euphrates, and my heart is a violent churning in my chest, swimming upstream, defying every odd, accepting any dare To reach you. To rush you, to hold you, to keep you. You ask me if I love you? God, yes. My lover, you are the single star in a universe void before you came. And when the years have passed, and we have watched a thousand sunsets, and we are bent, our bodies crooked with age ask me again. In the twilight, in the shadow of the life we have shared, ask me if I love you, and my heart will answer before my lips can part. My love, my life, my heart never left your hands. Always, evermore, even after. Still.

I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life.

It was an amazing vision. Few stretches of Central Europe have been the theatre for so much history. Beyond which watershed lay the pass where Hannibal's elephants had slithered downhill? Only a few miles away, the frontier of the Roman Empire had begun. Deep in those mythical forests that the river reflected for many days' march, the German tribes, Rome's Nemesis, had waited for their hour to strike. The Roman limes followed the river's southern bank all the way to the Black Sea. The same valley, functioning in reverse, funneled half the barbarians of Asia into Central Europe and just below my eyrie, heading upstream, the Huns entered and left again before swimming their ponies across the Rhine - or trotting them over the ice - until, foiled by a miracle, they drew rein a little short of Paris. Charlemagne stalked across the corner of his empire to destroy the Avars in Pannonia and a few leagues southwest, the ruins of Hohenstaufen, home of the family that plunged Emperors and Popes into centuries of vendetta, crumbled still.

Life’s a river. You can swim in it or you can drown, but you sure as hell can’t go back upstream.

. It’s as if, after swimming upstream in the chilly waters of my childhood, I’ve reached a warm sea, where I can simply float. I haven’t been willing to stir the familial sediment at the bottom. After all, that’s where all the shit is.

I crave that resistance, whether it comes from the city, my landlord, my staff, or my own shortcomings. It's not just helpful, it's necessary. You think a salmon really wants to swim upstream and die? They have no choice. That's how I feel, too.

I was the proverbial square peg in a round hole. I just didn’t fit in the corporate world. I didn’t understand the politics, and I felt like I was forever swimming upstream when I tried to get things done.

When we determine to swim upstream in our parenting, we inspire our sons to swim upstream too.

A big part of a pastor’s job is to keep the church swimming upstream, because the natural current takes us to a place of inward focus.

Montreal November 1704 Temperature 34 degrees Tannhahorens did not look at Mercy. The tip of his knife advanced and the Frenchman backed away from it. He was a very strong man, possibly stronger than Tannhahorens. But behind Tannhahorens were twenty heavily armed braves. The Frenchman kept backing and Tannhahorens kept pressing. No sailor dared move a muscle, not outnumbered as they were. The Sauk let out a hideous wailing war cry. Mercy shuddered with the memory of other war cries. Even more terrified, all the French took another step back--and three of them fell into the St. Lawrence River. The Sauk burst into wild laughter. The voyageurs hooted and booed. The sailors threw ropes to their floundering comrades, because only Indians knew how to swim. Tannhahorens took Mercy’s hand and led her to one of the pirogues, and the Sauk paddled close, hanging on to the edge of the dock so that Mercy could climb in. Mercy could not look at the Sauk. She had shamed Tannhahorens in front of them. Mercy climbed in and Tannhahorens stepped in after her, and the men paddled slowly upstream to Tannhahorens’s canoe. The other pirogue stayed at the wharf, where those Sauk continued to stand, their weapons shining. Eventually the French began to load the ship again. “Daughter,” said Tannhahorens, “the sailors are not good men.” She nodded. He bent until he could look directly into her eyes, something Indians did not care for as a rule. “Daughter.” She flushed scarlet. On her white cheeks, guilt would always be revealed. “The cross protects,” said Tannhahorens. “Or so the French fathers claim. Perhaps it does. But better protection is to stay out of danger.” Did Tannhahorens think she had gotten lost? Did he believe that she had ended up on the wharf by accident? That she was waving the cross around for protection? Or was he, in the way of Indians, allowing that to be the circumstance because it was easier? When he had thanked the Sauk sufficiently and they had agreed to tell Otter that Mercy had gone home with her father, Tannhahorens paddled back to Kahnawake. His long strong arms bent into the current. Her family had not trusted her after all. Tannhahorens must have been following her. Or, in the way of a real father, he had not trusted Montreal. Either way, she was defeated. There was no escape. If there is no escape, and if there is also no ransom, what is there for me? thought Mercy. I don’t want to be alone. A single star in a black and terrible night. How can I endure the name Alone Star? “Why do you call me Munnonock?” she asked. She wanted desperately to go home and end this ugly day. Home. It was still a word of warmth and comfort. Still a word of safety and love. The homes she had known misted and blended and she did not really know if it was Nistenha in the longhouse or Stepmama in Deerfield or her mother in heaven whose home she wanted. “You are brave, daughter,” said Tannhahorens without looking at her, without breaking his rhythm, “and can stand alone. You shine with courage, and so shone every night of your march. You are our hope for sons and daughters to come. On you much depends.

A blur of movement, Hunter threw the fur onto the riverbank and waded toward her. She couldn’t touch bottom and, despite the desperate pumping of her arms and legs, went under again, taking another draft of water. Grabbing her by the hair, he dragged her to the surface and nearer to shore so her feet touched. Bringing his face close to hers, he tightened his grip on her braid. “You will obey me.” He enunciated each word with venomous clarity. “Always. You are mine--Hunter’s woman, forever with no horizon. The next time you shake your head at me, I will beat you.” A measure of the water she had inhaled surged up her throat. Unable to stop herself, she choked and then coughed. The ejected spray hit him square in the eyes. He blinked and drew back, an incredulous look on his face. Loretta clamped her palms over her mouth, angling her arms to hide her breasts, her shoulders heaving. As angry as he appeared, she fully expected him to lay her flat with his fist. Instead he released her braid and caught hold of her arms. When she finally got her breath, he let go of her and returned to shore, his leather-clad legs cutting sparkling swaths through the water. After wiping his face dry with the buffalo robe, he turned to glower at her. He sat on his haunches and rested his corded forearms on his knees. Glancing upstream and down, he said, “Your wooden walls are far away, Yellow Hair. If you try to slip away, this Comanche will find you.” Until that moment, the thought of swimming off hadn’t occurred to her. She shot a glance over her shoulder at the swift current. If only she had clothes… “You do not make like a fish so good. Save this Comanche much trouble, eh?” She thought she detected laughter in his voice, but when she looked back at him, his gaze, blue-black and piercing, was as unreadable as ever. He studied her for several endless seconds. She wondered what he was thinking and decided, from the gleam in his eye, that she didn’t want to find out.

Swim downstream, not upstream,

It’s time to be the leader of your own journey. There are far too many capable people who don’t pursue their dreams and goals because they let their fears and others talk them out of it. They give up before they even try, and simply let life’s river flow them downstream. Choose to be stronger than that and swim upstream when you have to. Choose to do the things in life that move you and make you happy. Let others lead small lives and argue over small things. Let others cry over small wounds and leave their future in someone else’s hands. If you don’t take the initiative to make your own dreams a reality, you will end up working for someone else, making their dreams reality.

The professor leaned forward. “But there’s nothing more profound than creating something out of nothing.” Her lovely face turned fierce. “Think about it, Cath. That’s what makes a god—or a mother. There’s nothing more intoxicating than creating something from nothing. Creating something from yourself.” Cath hadn’t expected Professor Piper to be happy about her decision, but she hadn’t expected this either. She didn’t think the professor would push back. “It just feels like nothing to me,” Cath said. “You’d rather take—or borrow—someone else’s creation?” “I know Simon and Baz. I know how they think, what they feel. When I’m writing them, I get lost in them completely, and I’m happy. When I’m writing my own stuff, it’s like swimming upstream. Or … falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.” “Yes,” the professor said, reaching out and grasping the air in front of Cath, like she was catching a fly. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel.

It’s a beautiful sunlit Monday in August, the kind of day that would make your heart sing, your spirit rise. It’s lunchtime, and I’m standing in an absent-minded fog by the German sausage stall in Borough Market, under London Bridge. I can hear the trains rumbling overhead, and it reminds me of that scene from The Godfather, the one where Michael Corleone is about to assassinate his father’s rival mafia boss. Trains always seem to rumble overhead in movies when something ominous is about to happen, and it’s kind of spooky, not to mention fitting, because things couldn’t get much more ominous for me, right now.

Most companies have a yearly rhythm. For example, retail often has a busy time around December. If you identify the rhythm, you can plan your projects around it. If you don’t, you will find yourself swimming upstream. If your company doesn’t have a defined rhythm, define one for yourself.

Swimming upstream doesn’t come naturally. If you see someone swimming upstream, you can be confident that he or she has a reason for it. This is faith. Faith is the fuel that powers unnatural endeavors. It is far easier to just go with the flow—to create in the way that your cultural roots dictate. To make work that transcends the lazy, numb, bored, and uninspiring art that is the natural course of things, one must purposefully turn around and swim upstream. To do so takes courage. Purpose. Faith.

Getting scientists to consider the validity of Indigenous knowledge is like swimming upstream in cold, cold water. They've been so conditioned to be skeptical of even the hardest of hard data that bending their minds toward theories that are verified without the expected graphs or equations is tough. Couple that with the unblinking assumption that science has cornered the market on truth and there's not much room for discussion.

you have to keep shooting those fish in barrels.” I shrug. “And I have to swim upstream.

Because you have to keep shooting those fish in barrels.” I shrug. “And I have to swim upstream.

I don't believe in regret. So I never looked back on my choice to leave Columbia and wish that things had turned out differently. Life's current was so obviously carrying me in the direction of music, and rather than trying to swim back upstream, I simply let the tide carry me forward. At the time, I wouldn't have described it that way, nor did I truly understand that there was a flow with my name on it. But from this side of life, I can see how every moment, every experience, every pivot, even my supposed missteps have been life's way of getting me where I have always been meant to go. Rather than resisting the current, I've learned to surrender.

Define the ideal size of the first project (in dollars), and how that number fits into the larger relationship you want with the client. Your rationale is that relationships of this scale allow you to be effective and profitable. Describe the typical mix between strategy and implementation in your work. Must you do strategy at the outset, or would you go straight to implementation to get a foot in the door and then swim upstream later? What payment terms work well for you? If you require a significant portion of the fee at the outset, explain why you’ve come to that policy.

I think being yourself-your true, your entire self-is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream

If there is a waterfall at the end of a river, it is necessary to swim upstream! Crowds too are rivers that end with waterfalls!

Even a dead fish can swim upstream.

The Cycle's Whisper by Stewart Stafford A crisp mountain breeze, Whispers on verdant meadows, In the starlings' murmuration, Bodies flutter as the wind blows. River salmon leap upstream, To the places of their siring, All the tests of life in the flesh, With thrashing bodies expiring. Starving bears lie in wait to Shorten the fading quest, Or a moribund swim home, To a watery boneyard's rest. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

you opted to swim upstream, joining a group of people who have decided to go in a different educational direction from the rest of the world.

The only fish that can swim upstream.

If you are trying to do something, you will feel helpless. Life happens, it has nothing to do with doing. In the very effort you are creating trouble for yourself. Don’t try to swim upstream. Then you will feel as if the river is fighting you. It is not the river.

Four days after the lime incident, Mom’s friends came over with Cook’s champagne and an envelope of cash they’d pooled to help us out. Yes, New York is exhausting. Yes, there are millions of people all swimming upstream, but you’re also in it together. That’s why I put my career first. Not because I have no life, but because I can’t bear to let the one Mom wanted for us slip away. Because I need to know Libby and Brendan and the girls and I will all be okay no matter what, because I want to carve out a piece of the city and its magic, just for us. But carving turns you into a knife. Cold, hard, sharp, at least on the outside. Inside, my chest feels bruised, tender.

In a world where speaking one’s mind is, by definition, unsettling, when I took art in general and writing in particular as vocations I promised myself that I would never betray my inner being or sell out. To “be real”, to be someone I can love and understand. From repression to expression, this meant not to censor oneself when it comes to creativity. For one could gain the world but lose their soul. At some point along the way I came to accept that, having an unquenched appetite for the different and unordinary, my views will always seem to convey a distaste for conformity and the established norms of the day; that which is considered “popular” by the masses. As an outsider swimming upstream against the current, usually in solitude, who’s looking in at humanity — and through it — rather than looking out. As such, I shall carry on speaking my unfiltered, anti-conformist, anti-establishment mind till the day I die. The true artist who does not fit in often ends up standing out.

In a world where speaking one’s mind is, by definition, unsettling, when I took art in general and writing in particular as vocations I promised myself that I would never betray my inner being or sell out. To be true, genuine, authentic, and real. To be someone I can love and understand. From repression to expression, this meant not to censor oneself when it comes to creativity. For one could gain the world but lose their soul. At some point along the way I came to accept that, having an unquenched appetite for the different and unordinary, my views will always seem to convey a distaste for conformity and the established norms of the day; that which is considered “popular” by the masses. As an outsider swimming upstream against the current, usually in solitude, who’s looking in at humanity — and through it — rather than looking out. As such, I shall carry on speaking my unfiltered, anti-conformist, anti-establishment mind till the day I die. The true artist who does not fit in often ends up standing out.

In a world where speaking one’s mind is, by definition, unsettling, when I took art in general and writing in particular as vocations I promised myself that I would never betray my inner being or sell out. To be true, genuine, authentic, and real. To be someone I can love and understand. From repression to expression, this meant not to censor oneself when it comes to creativity. For one could gain the world but lose their soul. At some point along the way I came to accept that, having an unquenched appetite for the different, the original, and the unordinary, my views will always seem to convey a distaste for conformity and the established norms of the day; that which is considered “popular” by the masses. As an outsider swimming upstream against the current, usually in solitude, who’s looking in at humanity — and through it — rather than looking out. As such, I shall carry on speaking my unfiltered, anti-conformist, anti-establishment mind till the day I die. The true artist who does not fit in often ends up standing out.

In a world where speaking one’s mind is, by definition, unsettling, when I took art in general and writing in particular as vocations I promised myself that I would never betray my inner being or sell out. To be true, genuine, authentic, and real. To be someone I can love and understand. From repression to expression, this meant not to censor oneself when it comes to creativity. For one could gain the world but lose their soul. At some point along the way I came to accept that, having an unquenched appetite for the different, the original, the unordinary, my views will always seem to convey a distaste for conformity and the established norms of the day; that which is considered “popular” by the masses. As an outsider swimming upstream against the current, usually in solitude, who’s looking in at humanity — and through it — rather than looking out. As such, I shall carry on speaking my unfiltered, anti-conformist, anti-establishment mind till the day I die. The true artist who does not fit in often ends up standing out.

Many of you struggle to see the signs. Grief builds a wall that can keep us apart. Do you wonder why you can’t see me, sense me, feel me? It’s because when you weep and whine and brood and think yourself guilty when you are not, it pushes against my energy so I cannot reach you. When you have such an outpouring of emotion and sorrow, it’s like me trying to swim upstream through a waterfall of tears to get to you. But if you can try to relax and have faith in me, I can sail right over to you on the calm waters of your soul.

I think being yourself—your true, entire self—is always going to feel like you’re swimming upstream.” “Yeah,” she said. “But if the last few years with you have been any indication, I think it also feels like taking your bra off at the end of the day.” ― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Trying to control the world and what happens next is like trying to swim upstream against the flow – we exert a lot of energy and end up exactly where we started.

People say time be like a river. That’s bullshit. You can swim upstream and downstream in a river. Can you do that with time? Hell, no. Time ain’t no river. Time is a big fucking razor blade scraping across the universe. And the edge of that razor is now. See? That’s all there is, man. No upstream or down, no past or future—just now. And all the stuff we feel, like hoping and feeling sorry for shit, that’s nothing. Useless. Nothing matters in this world but now.

know he’s not mine, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’d rather pour myself into a world I love and understand than try to make something up out of nothing.” The professor leaned forward. “But there’s nothing more profound than creating something out of nothing.” Her lovely face turned fierce. “Think about it, Cath. That’s what makes a god – or a mother. There’s nothing more intoxicating than creating something from nothing. Creating something from yourself.” Cath hadn’t expected Professor Piper to be happy about her decision, but she hadn’t expected this either. She didn’t think the professor would push back. “It just feels like nothing to me,” Cath said. “You’d rather take – or borrow – someone else’s creation?” “I know Simon and Baz. I know how they think, what they feel. When I’m writing them, I get lost in them completely, and I’m happy. When I’m writing my own stuff, it’s like swimming upstream. Or . . . falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.” “Yes,” the professor said, reaching out and grasping the air in front of Cath, like she was catching a fly. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel.” Cath shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. “Well, I

Some flows, like sunlight or wind, cannot be affected by human action. No matter how many solar panels I put on my roof to absorb sunlight, they will have no effect on what the sun does tomorrow. But other flows—“critical-zone resources,” in the jargon—can be exploited to exhaustion. Consider an archetypical critical-zone flow: the run of salmon swimming upstream to spawn. Drop a net across the watercourse and the fish will swim right into it. As long as the number of fish taken from the river every year doesn’t exceed the number of survivors from that year’s crop of newborns, fishing can continue indefinitely—the supply won’t go down, no matter how many years people put in nets. But leave the net in too long one year and it will take every single salmon and there will be no more fishing after that. Catching the last fish is just as easy as catching the first—laying the net across the stream doesn’t get more costly as the supply diminishes. With critical-zone flows, things typically go fine until they suddenly don’t.

Life is a river of ordeals that makes men swim upstream so that they may chase after their dreams, and whoever refuses to swim gets washed away downstream and be dragooned to drown to its defeatist depths.

Though tremendous legislative strides have been made regarding both racial and gender equality, it is sad but true to acknowledge that racism and sexism still exist. They exist because "isms" are not legal conditions, they are heart conditions, and legislation does not change hearts.

It is important to understand that someone can be ordained by human beings to do something and not be anointed by God to do that same thing. It is also possible that someone can be anointed by God to do something and not have the approval or blessing of human beings to do that.

The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on service. Ask yourself, what are the gifts and talents you can share to raise the collective consciousness of all that you encounter? Making that shift from self to service will bring an immeasurable amount of fulfillment to your job, your relationships, and the vision you have of your own best life. Gary Zukav brilliantly describes this as the moment you discover your authentic power: “When your personality comes fully to serve the energy of its soul.” Fulfilling your purpose, with meaning, is what gives you that powerful spark of energy unique to only you. The result is an electrifying current of clarity rising from the deepest part of yourself. By tapping into that source, you will no longer feel like the salmon swimming upstream. Instead, people will finally see the highest, truest version of you and stand in awe, wondering how you achieved your dreams. As you read this chapter, my hope is that you will find the courage to tune out the negative voices telling you all the reasons to give up. Make the choice to turn up the volume to your unique calling, the glory that is your own life. —Oprah

different levels of punishment (or more to the point, nonpunishment) for each. The rich have always gotten breaks and the poor have always had to swim upstream. The new truth is infinitely darker and more twisted. The new truth is a sci-fi movie, a dystopia. And in this sci-fi world the issues aren’t justice and injustice, but biology and mortality. We have a giant, meat-grinding bureaucracy that literally alters the physical makeup of its citizens, systematically grinding down the losers into a smaller, meeker, lower race of animal while aggrandizing the winners, making them bigger than life, impervious, super-people. Again, the poor have always faced the sharp end of the stick. And the rich have always fought ferociously to protect their privilege, not just in America but everywhere.

When I'm writing my own stuff, it's like swimming upstream. Or... falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall." "Yes," the professor said, reaching out and grasping the air in front of Cath, like she was catching a fly. "That's how it's supposed to feel.

When I'm writing my own stuff, it's like swimming upstream. Or... falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall." "Yes," the professor said, reaching out and grasping the air in front of Cath, like she was catching a fly. "That's how it's supposed to feel.

You and a friend are having a picnic by the side of a river. Suddenly you hear a shout from the direction of the water—a child is drowning. Without thinking, you both dive in, grab the child, and swim to shore. Before you can recover, you hear another child cry for help. You and your friend jump back in the river to rescue her as well. Then another struggling child drifts into sight… and another… and another. The two of you can barely keep up. Suddenly, you see your friend wading out of the water, seeming to leave you alone. “Where are you going?” you demand. Your friend answers, “I’m going upstream to tackle the guy who’s throwing all these kids in the water.” —A public health parable (adapted from the original, which is commonly attributed to Irving Zola)

Maybe this is how the steelhead feels when it's caught-thrashing itself against water, then land - a lfedeath fight. How some get released and others get eaten and others just float away, too weak to surivive. All those body blows and wounds. Or when they swim upstream to spawn then die. Are they killing themselves? Or making life? Inside her house, Hannah made me a cup of green tea. But tenderness couldn't touch me then. I went swimming in the river alone every night that week. At a spot where hoodlums and teens gor drunk and jumped in to shoot the rapids. Nobody care that I was there. Or that I was older than them. Or alone. In nightwater, I didn't have to feel what people are supposed to feel. There is a glooming pease there. At the end of the rapids, there is a still. In water, like in books - you can leave your life.

Parents,” Bee says, pausing to make a moment out of saying something very wise, “are not supposed to make their children swim upstream. You weren’t there to care about their problems, you were supposed to be cared for.

Do I want to spend all my time left swimming upstream?

Man can live either as an island isolated from existence. He can think himself separated, but then there is misery. The misery is created, because we are going against existence. You cannot be happy if you are going against existence. Then you are fighting a losing battle trying to swim upstream in opposition to the current of the river of life. You may succeed for a while, but sooner or later you will be tired and  exhausted.  It is your own ideas that the river is an enemy that has created the whole problem. The river is not fighting you. You have tried to fight it,and you got defeated. The part can never win over the whole, If you would have accepted going with the flow of the river, there would have been no defeat. You would not have felt that existence has been against you. You would have felt that existence is a friend.  You would have felt a joy in going with the river. You would have felt that the river was giving you strength. That is the way of the religious person. The first way - The way of the ego  - is the way of the irreligious person. The second way - The way of the heart - is the way of letting go. It is the way of the religious person.  And the moment that you let go and merge with existence, God becomes your strength and there is great rejoicing in the heart. Then each momentis a moment of joy without any fight and struggle. That is the miracle of being religious. 

He’s a salmon swimming upstream. He’s Sunday morning swooping in like a hero when you woke up thinking it was Monday.

Man can either exist as an island isolated from existence, thinking himself separate from existence, or man can live in harmony with existence. The first way is the way of the ego. It is like trying to swim upstream in opposition to the stream of life. You may succeed for a while, but sooner or later you will become tired and exhausted. The river is not fighting you. It is just your own idea of being separated that has created the whole problem. You tried to fight with life, and you got defeated. The river is not responsible. If you had taken a different approach to life, if you had accepted to go with the river of life, there would have been no fight, no struggle, no frustration and no defeat. You would not have felt that existence was against you. You would not have felt that existence is your enemy. Going with the river, floating with the river, you would have felt that the river was giving you strength. That is the way of the religious person. The first way, the way of the ego, is the way of the irreligious person. The second way, the way of the heart is to be in harmony with existence. And the moment that you let go and merge with existence, God becomes your strength. Then there is great rejoicement in your heart. Then each moment becomes a joy without any fight, without any struggle. That is the joy of being religious.

Question : IF LIFE IS A BLISSFUL COSMIC PLAY, THEN WHY ARE ALL BEINGS SUFFERING? Osho : You, please, forget about all beings. You don't know. I'm not suffering. You may be suffering; don't talk about all beings. You don't even know yourself. How can you know the other? Just talk about yourself, because things are already much too complicated. When you start talking about all, you will make it almost impossible for yourself to understand the thing. Just you will do. Say only this: "Why am I suffering? If life is a blissful cosmic play, then why am I suffering?" -- only this much will do. Forget about all beings -- that is none of your business. If they want to suffer let them suffer. You, please, decide only for yourself. Even that is too much, not easy. Why are you suffering? The ego suffers. The whole is a cosmic play; it is beautiful. It is a tremendous celebration -- moment to moment, moving to higher and higher peaks. You are suffering because you are not part of it. The ego is never part of the whole; the ego tries to be separate. The ego tries to have its own plans, to have its own ideas, to have its own goals. That's why you are suffering. If you become part of the whole there is no suffering. Suddenly you start floating with the stream. You are no longer moving upstream. You are no longer even swimming, because then too there is effort. You are just floating with the stream: wheresoever it leads, there is the goal. You have dropped private goals; you have accepted the destiny of the whole. Then you live easily, you die easily. There is no resistance. Resistance is suffering -- and you cannot win against the whole. So every moment you resist you fail, you suffer. Try to live without your ego, and there is no more suffering. Suffering is an attitude; it is not an actuality. You fall ill: you immediately start fighting with illness; suffering arises. If you accept it, suffering disappears. Then you know that God wills this; there must be some point in it. It must be needed for your growth. You ask me if life is a blissful cosmic play, then WHY... then why is there suffering. There is suffering because you are still not part of the cosmic play. You have your own small drama, and you want to play it. You are not part of the whole; you are trying to create a small world of your own. Every ego creates its own world, that's the problem. Float with the whole, and suffering disappears. Suffering is symptomatic: it shows you must be fighting the whole, that's all. You are not suffering for your sins committed in the past; you are suffering for the sin that you are continuing right now, committing right now. The sin is simple: to fight, not to accept. The word "sin" is beautiful. It comes from a root which means "to separate." The word "sin" itself comes from a root which means to separate: you are separated, that is the only sin. Just the opposite is the concept of Patanjali -- He insists on "yoga," to be joined together. ..sin means to be separate; yoga means to be joined together again. If you are joined together again with the whole, there is no suffering. The more you go far away from the whole, the more you suffer. The more you are, the more you will suffer.

We are swimming upstream against a great torrent of disorganization, which tends to reduce everything to the heat death of equilibrium and sameness described in the second law of thermodynamics. What Maxwell, Bolzmann and Gibbs meant by this heat death in physics has a counterpart in the ethic of Kierkegaard, who pointed out that we live in a chaotic moral universe. In this, our main obligation is to establish arbitrary enclaves of order and system. These enclaves will not remain there indefinitely by any momentum of their own after we have once established them . .. We are not fighting for a definitive victory in the indefinite future. It is the greatest possible victory to be, to continue to be, and to have been .. . This is no defeatism, it is rather a sense of tragedy in a world in which necessity is represented by an inevitable disappearance of differentiation. The declaration of our own nature and the attempt to build an enclave of organization in the face of nature's overwhelming tendency to disorder is an insolence against the gods and the iron necessity that they impose. Here lies tragedy, but here lies glory too.

We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves.…We are swimming upstream against a great torrent of disorganization….In this, our main obligation is to establish arbitrary enclaves of order and system….It is the greatest possible victory to be, to continue to be, and to have been. No defeat can deprive us of the success of having existed for some moment of time in a universe that seems indifferent to us. This is no defeatism….The declaration of our own nature and the attempt to build up an enclave of organization in the face of nature’s overwhelming tendency to disorder is an insolence against the gods and the iron necessity that they impose. Here lies tragedy, but here lies glory too.

We are swimming upstream against a great torrent of disorganization, which tends to reduce everything to the heatdeath of equilibrium and sameness described in the second law of thermodynamics. What Maxwell, Boltzmann, and Gibbs meant by this heat death in physics has a counterpart in the ethics of Kierkegaard, who pointed out that we live in a chaotic moral universe. In this, our main obligation is to establish arbitrary enclaves of order and system. These enclaves will not remain there indefinitely by any momentum of their own after we have once established them. Like the Red Queen, we cannot stay where we are without running as fast as we can. We are not fighting for a definitive victory in the indefinite future. It is the greatest possible victory to be, to continue to be, and to have been. No defeat can deprive us of the success of having existed for some moment of time in a universe that seems indifferent to us. This is no defeatism, it is rather a sense of tragedy in a world in which necessity is represented by an inevitable disappearance of differentiation. The declaration of our own nature and the attempt to build up an enclave of organization in the face of nature’s overwhelming tendency to disorder is an insolence against the gods and the iron necessity that they impose. Here lies tragedy, but here lies glory too.