Finding the Still Point

Finding the Still Point.

If you look at a spinning wheel, the rim is moving incredibly fast, crashing into the dirt, getting battered by the road. But in the very center, the hub is still. It has to be still for the wheel to spin at all. 30 separate pieces, end, middle end, all joined in a central point to form the hub.

Most of us spend our lives clinging to the rim of the wheel. We are desperately trying to manage the chaos, running at maximum effort, and getting absolutely battered by the turning of the world. We think that if we just white-knuckle it a little harder, eventually things will calm down.

Spoiler alert: the rim never calms down. That's not its job.

Finding the hub isn't about stopping the wheel. It's about changing where you choose to sit. When we practice the Art of Giving Up, we are ultimately giving up our desperate grip on the chaotic edge of things so we can find our the center.

It is in this center—this still point—that we discover something remarkably foreign to most adults: the "Mysterious Space" between effort and ease. This is the space where play happens.

We've forgotten our divine right to play. We treat movement like a chore, meditation like a punishment, and life like a grim ledger of "stuff to get done." But when you finally find the hub, you realize that life isn't a test you're failing; it's a grand exercise. Life is about play.

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When you sit in the hub, you don't have to push the wheel. You just have to let it turn, and enjoy the ride. The moment you give up the exhausting addiction to the rim, you get your playfulness back. And honestly, a sense of play is the best immune system against modern life there is. How do we cultivate this skill? Well, in a lot of ways, however, Emptying the cup is a good start. But then, we, play, we watch our breath, we move, we use our imagination, we think differently. This is how we find the hub.