Wu wei is an early Chinese term that means
literally no doing or no trying.
But I think a better translation is effortless
action.
And it's the central spiritual ideal for these
early thinkers I look at.
So the Confucians and the Daoists.
And what it looks a little bit like flow or
being in the zone as an athlete.
So you're very effective.
You're moving through the world in a very
efficient way -- social world and physical
world.
But you don't have a sense of doing anything.
You don't have a sense of effort.
You don't have a sense of yourself as an agent.
You kind of lose yourself in the activity
you're involved in.
And you're not only efficacious in terms of
skill in the world.
You also have this power that the early Chinese
call -- unfortunately the Mandarin pronunciation
is duh which sounds kind of funny.
But it's often translated as virtue.
It means like charismatic power.
Charismatic virtue.
It's this energy you kick off, an aura that
you kick off when you're in a state of wu
wei.
And this is why these early thinkers want
wu wei because for both of them, the Confucians
and the Daoists it's the key to political
and spiritual success.
So if you're a Confucian getting into a state
of wu-wei gives you this power duh.
And this allows you to attract followers without
having to force them or try to get them to
follow you.
People just spontaneously want to follow you.
If you're a Daoist it's what relaxes people,
puts them at ease and allows you to move through
the social world effectively without harm.
So everybody wants this because it's a very
-- it's the key to success.
But they're all involved in this tension then
of how do you try to be effortless.
How do you try not to try.
So the first strategy is the early Confucian
strategy which I refer to as carving and polishing
strategy which is essentially you're gonna
try really hard for a long time.
And if you do that eventually the trying will
fall away and you'll be spontaneous in the
right way.
So you practice ritual, you engage in learning
with fellow students and eventually somehow
at some point you make the transition from
trying to having internalized these things
you're learning and being able to embody them
in an effortless way.
The second strategy, the uncarved block or
going back to nature strategy is the Daode
jing or the primitivists Daoists.
And they essentially think the Confucian strategy
is doomed.
If you are trying to be virtuous, if you're
trying to be a Confucian gentleman, you're
never gonna be a Confucian gentleman.
Anyone trying to be benevolent is never gonna
actually be benevolent.
They're just gonna be this hypocrite.
So their strategy is undo all this learning
that you've been taught.
So get rid of culture, get rid of learning,
actually physically drop out of society.
So they want you to go live in the countryside
in a small village.
It looks a lot like kind of 1960s hippie movement,
you know.
Back to nature and get rid of technology.
Get rid of all of the bad things that society
has done to us.
There's good points to this strategy, too.
One of the main insights I think of the Daoists,
these early Daoists is a way in which social
values, social learning can corrupt our natural
preferences.
So we're, you know, body images in advertising
teach women that they have to be anorexic
if they're attractive.
We're taught that we always need to have the
latest iPhone.
So, you know, we have a perfectly good iPhone
but then we see the new iPhone and suddenly
our old iPhone isn't good anymore.
There's a lot of good literature on this in
psychology on the hedonistic treadmill.
We're never quite happy with what we have.
As soon as we get it we want the next thing.
And the Daode jing thinks Confucianism encourages
that.
And the solution to get off that hedonistic
treadmill was to just stop and go back to
nature and be simple.
So that's the uncarved box strategy.
And probably which strategy is the best varies
by the situation.
So it probably varies from situation to situation
what your particular barrier to spontaneity
is in the moment.
And it also probably varies person to person.
So people who have innate personality differences
that probably determine which strategy's the
best for them.
And then also, you know, we've got -- people
are introverted who need one sort of push.
And people are extroverted, you know, the
other kind of maybe be getting pulled in.
And also probably varies by life stage.
So early on in life especially if you're trying
to develop a new skill the carving and polishing
strategy makes the most sense.
And then some of these Daoists approaches
maybe make more sense.
When the training is done, the learning is
done and you've got to learn to just let go
and let this thing you've internalized take
over and do the work for you.
