{"id":197197,"date":"2019-12-17T06:23:13","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T14:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=197197"},"modified":"2019-12-17T06:54:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T14:54:10","slug":"wu-wei-taoist-philosophy-action-without-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/17\/wu-wei-taoist-philosophy-action-without-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Wu Wei Taoist Philosophy: Action Without Action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One philosophical notion from Taoism I find absolutely fascinating\u00e2\u20ac\u201d that of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wu wei\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d which means \u00e2\u20ac\u0153action without action\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153effortless action\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Here is what I think it means and how I apply it to my own life:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t force yourself to do something when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not ready for it.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Droplet<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – Nassim Taleb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is the first notion: don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always feel like you must force yourself to be so \u00e2\u20ac\u0153productive\u00e2\u20ac\u009d all the time, against your own willpower and mood. I believe there is a trillion times more wisdom in our gut than in our mind. What does this mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do things when you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like doing it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Like Taleb, I believe our body has some sort of natural filtering system of intentionally procrastinating on things which we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t consider important or essential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why \u00e2\u20ac\u0153force\u00e2\u20ac\u009d yourself to work when you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Wave<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is the insanity of modern times:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must work for work sake, and to NOT be working and toiling away is to be actively \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sinning\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This notion comes from utilitarianism\/Protestant work ethic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to become a virtuous person, you must always be working for the greater good of humanity. Any moment NOT spent toward this goal is a vice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Then we are taught to feel extreme shame for our leisure. We are shamed into always being active. When we talk to people, the default is to say we are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153so busy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a badge of pride. Also we have this false notion of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153successful\u00e2\u20ac\u009d people always being so busy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new measure of success<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Light<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The only measure I have for success is how much time I have to kill.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – Nassim Taleb (Bed of Procrustes)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Now, I strive to NEVER do anything I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to do at a given moment. I intentionally procrastinate on superfluous tasks as long as I can get away with it, and as a consequence I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been MORE productive on the tasks which I personally care for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as a consequence, everything which needs to get done gets accomplished by its own accord! In its own time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One philosophical notion from Taoism I find absolutely fascinating\u00e2\u20ac\u201d that of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wu wei\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d which means \u00e2\u20ac\u0153action without action\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153effortless action\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Here is what I think it means and how I apply it to my own life:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":197103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/20191214-R0053157.jpg?fit=2000%2C1333&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197197"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197256,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197197\/revisions\/197256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}