I'm late to this particular party, but I thought I'd recommend something to read about this topic.
Chapter 2 of Jon Elster's 1983 classic, Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality, contains an analysis and discussion of "states that are essentially by-products" (as he calls them, and as the chapter is titled).
I highly recommend it, but not because I think he gets everything right. It's because he proposes some paradigmatic examples you can think through yourself (and perhaps use as models to think of other examples of such states), because he cites some interesting work from the history of philosophy, and because he proposes a useful vocabulary for thinking through these things.
Spontaneous action from the heart without an explicit plan.... Yes, Daoism, Buddhism, Zen and related thought that is close to the concept arose in "the East" which in itself is ironic because East Asia has a very strong tradition of state planning and control, you could almost say the above thought was a reaction against it.
Western thought has its own traditions to in this direction. Think of the romantics. Primacy of feeling. And existentialism to me is a kind or sour grapes Zen. Where Zen says, everything is meaningless, isn't it marvelous, existentialism concludes, "therefore it is your solemn duty to force meaning into the damn thing". Only Camus gets it right with, none of this makes sense, do what you want.
On Wu Wei, it has worked for me. On a number of things I tried to achieve that were important to me, the stages of success were: try, fail, try again, keep on failing, get frustrated, stop really trying, and start doing random things I like with my time, lose track of original goal, then succeed to achieve close to the original goal, virtually without trying. One thing though, it can take a very long time.
In my mind Wu Wei can be a number of things, not either-or but sometimes all at the same time. One is implicit mastery (there is a point in all this futile trying : it's not actually trying, it's practicing. What in the end appears like not trying is just mastery so effortless it appears like not trying). Then there is the concept of, give luck a chance. If you are trying too hard, you are getting blind to chance opportunities. There is the idea of settling into natural equilibria, dynamically systems attractors if you want a formal image for what I mean. Probe and find your attractor, don't force your way. And finally the wisdom of spontaneous action, coming from inside: just because it's not formalized into conscious words, plans or algorithms, doesn't necessarily mean your brain doesn't know what it's doing. You just have to get your frontal cortex out of the way sometimes to get your brains to work properly again. Three cheers for alcohol.
I'm late to this particular party, but I thought I'd recommend something to read about this topic.
Chapter 2 of Jon Elster's 1983 classic, Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality, contains an analysis and discussion of "states that are essentially by-products" (as he calls them, and as the chapter is titled).
I highly recommend it, but not because I think he gets everything right. It's because he proposes some paradigmatic examples you can think through yourself (and perhaps use as models to think of other examples of such states), because he cites some interesting work from the history of philosophy, and because he proposes a useful vocabulary for thinking through these things.
wu wei (無為 ”non-action”) reminds me of Zizek's / Herman Melville's "I Would Prefer Not To"
Spontaneous action from the heart without an explicit plan.... Yes, Daoism, Buddhism, Zen and related thought that is close to the concept arose in "the East" which in itself is ironic because East Asia has a very strong tradition of state planning and control, you could almost say the above thought was a reaction against it.
Western thought has its own traditions to in this direction. Think of the romantics. Primacy of feeling. And existentialism to me is a kind or sour grapes Zen. Where Zen says, everything is meaningless, isn't it marvelous, existentialism concludes, "therefore it is your solemn duty to force meaning into the damn thing". Only Camus gets it right with, none of this makes sense, do what you want.
On Wu Wei, it has worked for me. On a number of things I tried to achieve that were important to me, the stages of success were: try, fail, try again, keep on failing, get frustrated, stop really trying, and start doing random things I like with my time, lose track of original goal, then succeed to achieve close to the original goal, virtually without trying. One thing though, it can take a very long time.
In my mind Wu Wei can be a number of things, not either-or but sometimes all at the same time. One is implicit mastery (there is a point in all this futile trying : it's not actually trying, it's practicing. What in the end appears like not trying is just mastery so effortless it appears like not trying). Then there is the concept of, give luck a chance. If you are trying too hard, you are getting blind to chance opportunities. There is the idea of settling into natural equilibria, dynamically systems attractors if you want a formal image for what I mean. Probe and find your attractor, don't force your way. And finally the wisdom of spontaneous action, coming from inside: just because it's not formalized into conscious words, plans or algorithms, doesn't necessarily mean your brain doesn't know what it's doing. You just have to get your frontal cortex out of the way sometimes to get your brains to work properly again. Three cheers for alcohol.
Yes, that’s apt, I think, because there’s a definite subversive flavour to Zhuangzi’s use of 無為.