“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.” - Alan Watts
The Power of Passiveness
Often, when a problem arises, we believe that we ought to do something against them. We seek action, because we want to be in control. Rarely do we consider that the best thing to do is to do nothing. Through patience and observation, many issues clear themselves. Order is a force that is hardly forced, but always established.
In the case of muddy water, if left alone, it accumulates the dirt on the ground. The passive state accomplishes much more than active disturbance of water. The most efficient way to help it clear is to let gravity do the work. On the contrary, any interference with water will only contribute to the loss of water and disturb the natural proclivity to become clear again.
Sometimes the best option to do, is to do nothing. And then you have enough energy to do something truly creative.
I do agree that by letting things take care of themselves makes them progressively more antifragile (or they die out) but I also don't understand how this is not in some way contradicting the fact that entropy rises over time, i.e. if we leave things alone, they will progress towards disorder and thus such problems won't solve themselves. It seems to me that the analogy is dangerous to apply to a lot of situation in everyday life.
The thing I would conclude is that no intervention is always better than a wrong one, but certainly not better than a good one.
I really enjoy reading your essays, and they are helping me discover new ways to think about things! I really appreciate that such writings are available to everyone :)