Less Control, More Surrender

I am a fan of Beth Kempton. I have been on her mailing list for years and admire the gentleness and humility with which she approaches the world, neither of which, regrettably, is ever likely to become one of my defining characteristics.

This morning an email arrived from her marking the eighth anniversary of the publication of Wabi Sabi. It included this:

“Less stuff, more soul. Less hustle, more ease. Less chaos, more calm. Less mass consumption, more unique creation. Less complexity, more clarity. Less judgement, more forgiveness. Less bravado, more truth. Less resistance, more resilience. Less control, more surrender. 

Less head, more heart.”

It's beautiful.

Beth's point in the email is that things take the time they take. Wabi Sabi wasn't an instant success. It found its readers gradually, largely through people recommending it to one another, and eight years later it has sold nearly half a million copies. Her new book has been quietly marinating in one form or another for almost a decade.

There is something enormously reassuring in that. We are surrounded by the idea that anything worthwhile should happen quickly and visibly, and that if it isn't happening yet we should probably be doing more to make it happen. Beth's argument is gentler. Sometimes the time is part of the thing.

I believe her.

Unfortunately, her email arrived the morning after I established that five weeks is not five fucking weeks.

This does rather test one's commitment to the principle.

I have tried resistance. I have tried control. Neither has displayed any discernible influence over events. And perhaps there is something in accepting that the time between wanting something to happen and its actually happening is not necessarily empty space. Things are still moving. Things are still becoming. Things take the time they take.

I can probably manage that much.

I struggle rather more with the gentleness.

I don't understand how any woman can move through the twenty-first century without being consumed by rage. There is so much to be angry about that less resistance, more resilience occasionally feels less like wisdom and more like an astonishing feat of emotional regulation.

Still, perhaps Beth has arrived at precisely the right moment.

Less control, more surrender.

Fine, Beth.

But I'm keeping the rage.