Christopher has a post about the speculative metaphor I wrote about the subject. He observes that

The message seems that to get through, one must simply paddle in order to explore and discover our own outcome.

Notice though, that the boat has knowledge, it knows stuff. And that you can think of the whole thing as more like a system, there are waves, wind, eddies, the boat, the oar. They all inter relate, but it isn’t really clear that one has more importance than another in deciding anything. After all, if I were in the boat I could choose to row, furiously perhaps, but it is clear that “one place is as well as close enough, or further away, than any other” so where I might be trying to get to wouldn’t really be clear, or matter that much. So, sometimes, you don’t even need to row (you paddle a canoe, you row a boat), you might just follow with, and even be part of, the flows.