A Relaxed You is a Better You

2 minute read

The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything: the better you are with your loved ones, the better you are with your enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are with yourself. –Bill Murray

The observation that God and his entourage appear in a brain-like casing has been well noted about Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. This can allude to a few interpretations intermingling God or the divine with consciousness, the mind, or the brain. “Consciousness is God” says the person well versed in meditation or psychedelics. “All is mind. Universe is mental” says the Kybalion. “Our intellect is what gives us Godlike powers” says the rational scientist.

That’s all interesting, but what about Adam? What can we learn from Michelangelo’s depiction of our fellow representative in the moment of genesis? Adam must’ve been doing something right to bring God close to him. It takes two to tango. Yet most will see him as lifeless or passive and thus overlook his genius. It’s his passivity that invites God. God comes to the relaxed. 

Adam wasn’t dead. He was skilfully relaxed with a dash of healthy indifference which allowed life to approach and run through him. Can you imagine if he instead started to scream with excitement “Oh my! Look everyone! God is approaching me”? God would probably cringe, “that guy’s too clouded to receive my presence” and change directions.

As an artist, I can attest that most – if not all – of my ideas and inspirations have come effortlessly when I was simply receptive. Not when I was labouring behind my desk but when I was still in nature, shower, or bed. Yes, the soil must have been tended, the mind prepared. But all good things appear on their own accord. Suddenly the lotus blossoms. 

Instead of relaxing during vacation, or thinking of calm as simply good for our mental health, Bill Murray sees it as an ingredient for effectiveness. He’s talking about effortless action, calm in motion. Murray understands wu wei.

Haste makes waste. Note feedback from reality and go with the waves, not against them. As they say in golf: feel the force, don’t force the feel.