🎨 NO PLAN

When Creative Flow Meets Wu Wei

“Colorful Joy” — mixed-media painting and papercut collage by Sammi Han

🌿 The Tao of Non-Striving

“We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.”
— Laozi, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 11

🎨 Before the First Brushstroke

One morning in my abstract painting class, my instructor asked,
“What’s your plan for this painting?”

I paused, brush in hand.
“I don’t have one,” I said — and meant it.

What followed became more than a painting.
It turned into a quiet reflection on how creativity unfolds when we release control —
how flow, in psychology, and Wu Wei, in Taoism,
meet in the still space of non-striving.

When we loosen control, more begins to emerge.
From emptiness, unexpected ideas and forms take shape —
each one a small possibility,
each one a reminder that inspiration often appears
when we stop trying to summon it.

---

🎨 No Plan

by Sammi Han

“What’s your plan for this painting?”
she asked.

I paused.
“I don’t have one,”
I said —
and meant it.

Before me,
a hill of color:

Red — pulsing with pain and passion.
Yellow — soft as morning laughter.
Blue — a quiet promise of sky.
Green — breathing spring and rain.
Purple — that wordless pull
toward the vast,
the awake.

Black and white —
origin, return;
grief, grace;
death, becoming.

And orange —
my son’s favorite —
his bright, young heart
alive with curiosity,
openness,
possibility.

What if they all met?
Each color leaning in,
blending, clashing,
dancing.

Is that not life itself —
a canvas finding its own way?

So I painted on.
No plan, no map —
only motion,
only trust.

Until it appeared:
this joyful, puzzled,
playful thing.

And I thought:
This is me.
For now.
Not forever —
just this moment,
this breath of becoming.

And when I looked at it,
I became too.

---

🌿 When Flow Meets Wu Wei

Modern psychology calls it flow —
a state where concentration deepens, time dissolves,
and self-consciousness fades.
The dancer becomes the dance;
the painter, the painting.

Taoism calls it Wu Wei —
non-action, or effortless alignment with the natural order.
It doesn’t mean inaction.
It means acting without forcing —
allowing life to move through you
rather than against you.

Both describe the same sacred ease:
the moment when doing and being merge.
Flow is the Western lens; Wu Wei, the Eastern name —
two ways of seeing the same current
carrying all creation forward.

Both paths lead to ease —
but they travel differently.

🧘 Goal vs. Path

In psychology, flow is often pursued
as something to achieve —
a state linked to productivity, creativity, and happiness.

In Taoism, the effortless state is not a goal but a way.
It arises naturally when we live in harmony with the Tao —
with truth, timing, and what is.
To chase flow becomes its own kind of resistance.

So while psychology studies how to enter flow,
the Tao reminds us:
we are already there,
when we stop striving.

---

🌸 Becoming the Brush

As I painted,
the “I” that planned disappeared.
Color met canvas without effort.
The brush moved like breath.
What emerged was not control,
but conversation.

To paint without a plan is to live the Tao —
to let form arise from formlessness,
motion from stillness,
trust from release.

That’s when creation paints you back.

“Stillness” — original painting by Sammi Han

Thank you for reading.
I hope your brush meets the unexpected —
where stillness turns to color,
and color turns to life.

With love and stillness,
Sammi Han

When we stop striving, the brush begins to move on its own.🪷

💛 What does flow feel like for you — in art, in writing, or in life?
I’d love to hear from you ✨

© 2025 Sammi Xiao HAN | PresentWordTravels. All rights reserved.
This piece is part of an ongoing body of work that will become a published poetry collection. All content is the original creation of the author and protected by copyright.
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