At no time did anyone receive the wisdom of life at birth.  The proverbial book of wisdom presented to you at birth is called your parents.  But like any manual there are ways to improve upon because there are always changes.  For those of us that do not like change we have a very rude awakening.  Those that resist are eventually stripped away and have cataclysmic awakenings being dashed upon the boulders of attitude adjustment or caught in the white water of reorganization.  We all need to wake up and get with the program.  It is much easier to swim in the stream with the direction we are normally flowing towards than any other possibility.

Thus the Tao is called the Watercourse Way.  There are many ways that water flows of course.  Sometimes we are the gentle shower and sometimes we are the palatial glacial shelf that obliterates even mountains in its path.  The steam that can cut steel is needed for the finer work but eventually all water finds its way to the sea.  The primordial sea is where the birth of consciousness and life may have begun and not in the arid, cold abyss of space.

All life is flow.  Water is at times considered trace-less.  It vanished after use.  It cycles to the clouds or joins the greater flow following tributaries to the sea. We need the awareness of mindfulness to remember to be like water; trace-less after its work is done but the apparent works of its passing leaving the wonder of all who view its creation. The subtlety and power of water is beyond awe inspiring.  It is the pillar of life; no water no life on Earth.

Without the Tao, like water there is no life.  Like water the Tao can be used but never used up.  It changes to the trace-less non-conformity that is its nature.  Remember to watch and observe.  At what point am I steam, a glacier, frozen water crystals, snow or even raging flood waters.  All have their time and place.  Wisdom is knowing when to flow.