To live in extreme honesty, one must be painfully aware of the fact that your "honesty" is always, always and without failure, dependent on one single flawed perception; on one interpretation of the universe; that is, your own subjective experience.

Human beings bear the unique gift of a so-called higher moral intelligence. This is a huge responsibility, yet we seem to be failing it. And the fate of future life may hinge on owning up to a simple belief set: That I live in one small corner of the world; my viewpoint, perceptions and beliefs are flawed by the boundaries that accompany my surroundings, and therefore I should strive to find what misbeliefs I have, where I am limited, in order to determine the best possible truths.

As humans, our viewpoints are inherently flawed despite our best intentions. I have come to this conclusion, particularly as an immigration lawyer, as an observer into the private lives of many people from around the world, the societies and governments, and religions that bind them. I came to this conclusion through my own endless struggles in life and work and travel, however relative they may be. I acknowledge that my perspective will always be inherently flawed. I must seek honesty, there, before ego.

To have an appropriate level of honesty, one that evens out toward objectivity despite the "who" who is doing the perception, is to be one with an extreme awareness that, at any given moment you could be on the other side, depending on your placement in the lottery of birth. Like waking up on the other side of the world in a strange land. This recognition means that everything you take for granted as truth is likely another person's fiction - comedy or tragedy. All things rest / have rested / will rest in the same state of existence some day. And death is, in all honesty, the only ultimate truth we know exists, and that we don't really know what happens after it.

And we should be unashamed and humble to admit this part of our existence. Because the subjective perception that taints what divides us in this ultimate experience is simultaneously horrific yet beautiful; it's natural. Therefore your subjective view will always divine. It's biological. You can only be YOU, and simultaneously try to be whoever you are not. The views of others are thus the same as yours.

So you must ask yourself, are your beliefs on life, love, fairness and justice as ultimately honest as possible? Is your vision for a "basic standard of life" the only fair option? can you admit that everything you know and believe may be "wrong," no matter how small that probability may be? Or at least that there are several ways to achieve the same solutions; and just because some problems are of bigger or smaller magnitudes to you than to others doesn't make them any lesser in objective fact?

Maybe you are already grateful for your lucky strike at birthright, or maybe you are disgruntled with the default circumstances of your happening to be alive... maybe you are starving, or maybe you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth... or you lost that spoon, someone stole it, in the midst of war.

Maybe you are more like "most guys." and you're just stuck, like everyone else, in the distorted reflection of your baloney pizza place. You could be eating pizza with sour cream cheese and sweet baloney on one side of the world, thinking it's the most awesome pizza out there, because it's the only kind you've ever had. You have never tasted a Chicago deep dish or New York slice, and because all you really know is that sour cream cheese sweet baloney pizza tastes so darn awesome, you conclude that your opinion reflects an ultimate truth. But, of course this is dishonest. We confuse truth with opinion because we forget about our own subjectivity, and that we adopt a shared subjectivity of those who surround us. So we have two missions: 1) root out Individual subjectivity in our community, in our world, and 2) root out the shared subjectivity around us. We, as groups and communities, adopt the same subjective beliefs to be ultimate truths. It helps us to survive in packs. But it also can form malice; a mob mentality; a binding rigidity against the creation of common good. Fake news, the scape goat, so to speak of today's subjective vices. The denial of individual or group subjectivity does not create a platform for trust, love, or standard of care to "others."

Subjectivity itself is not tantamount to dishonesty. But it's the denial of our own subjectivities that perpetuates the repeating conflicts of time.

Could the ultimate intelligent life be one that inherently & concurrently sees the subjectivity of their own perceptions? Perhaps this means an enlightenment... Solid state. An inner peace that reflects among us, and guarantees us all the chance to sit with God. Nirvana.

In the meantime, as of now, most human beings recognize the world around us from the inevitable, single viewpoint. The devil whispers, it's the ONLY way. That's our nature... our instinct. But, really we EACH see things only one way, and each one differently. So which one is correct or true? Without each and every one of us, there is no "we." And without "we" there is nothing, but only nihilism.

Yes math is math, language is language, but don't we use a variety of symbols to express it? To think dishonestly is,- and quite blindly so- to doubt the validity of any other sort of existence in the world. And yet it's our instinct and nature to think so. This drives the 'just-i-fiction" of the aristocracy; class systems; casts; conquests; inherited entitlement. Therein these trends lies an automatic doubt cast on anyone or anything whose existence diverges from those common beliefs by those who hold wealth and power, on the optimal essence or state of things for "them," not "us."

To combat this phenomenon, the Best one can do in life, to be righteous unto one's god, to one's tribe, to be fair to one's neighbors, to live and to think in a way that truly compliments other human beings, the land, all life, and health; to execute what we mostly all claim as our common objective of public good; in other words, to create the maximum positive outcome of any kind for all people and living things, is to live your life honestly, to the extreme.

With "extreme honesty" maybe we will find balance; and begin to hear The Word.

So wake up now, it's 2020 (when I write this). Let's see clearly that we are all flawed and beautiful at once. We are all different but equal in one way; that our perceptions are ours alone, only by the grace or Mercy of God; the chance that we are born only with who we are, for better or worse, flawed. What all this means? that none of us should assume we are the only beholders of the truth. Do not surrender to the flaws of our single organism biology. Do not surrender to instinct.

If we do not change our perceptions we may as well live life eating sour cream cheese & baloney pizza; never caring to taste anything else... so let's change this trend, today.

What's the baloney in your life, preventing you to look outside of yourself? this is where the inquiry will begin. And until we can all ask ourself this question, and give an ultimately honest answer in the mirror, is to deny that all beings share more in essence than we differ. Until this happens, we will be stinking of baloney breath. Each, and EVERY one of us. After we smell our own baloney we wake up; recognize that we're in the same boat; seeking common goals; fighting common obstacles; and then pushing them aside.

My baloney breath may always exist, but at least if we can smell it on ourselves, and do our best to call it out, we may get along a little better in the world. So to to find your own baloney breath, breathe into a mirror, then grab some Listerine to (temporarily) stop offending others. It will persist, as morning breath does, but stop ignoring it. Take time to brush it away. Awareness is everything.

Jan 2, 2020 11:35:07 PM

Oh I meant in replacement of "complex" not of "sufficiently".

Complexity is not required to enter flow but a certain level of challenge is.

I like to think of Wu Wei as the path of least action when it comes to what we expect the world to be. It's about how things fit perfectly in the current context, any action to be taken is easily derived from this context.

So in a way, a video game map can be made Wu Wei, which in turn may yield a flow state if the player is experienced.

Maybe perfect conditions can lower the threshold of skill/activation needed to achieve flow. Like a ceiling and a floor coming togheter.

Yes, I agree these ate all forms of communication, verbal of course and sign language, grail, yup Morse code.

Excellent book! If anyone needs it here's a TLDR of Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

But with several types of meditation, particularly those that are mindfulness based, there is the progression of intentionally bringing that mindfulness or stabilization to life or off the cushion. It’s not having no thought that is the goal on or off (in most practices I’m aware of) the cushion, it’s to be more aware of what is happening in consciousness during practice. That practice being meditation, skills, life.

"Challenge" burns you out. Sufficient was correct.

Edit: dare I say, it was.... Sufficient.

This article is about flow, not Wu Wei. Wu Wei is only mentioned once, saying that there are some parallels, not they are comparable. They are most definitely not comparable. This title is pretty much a click bait.

I routinely achieve something like this on the food assembly line at work - balancing cooking more beef on the grill, chicken in fry cats with toasting buns & assembling food, I end up in a sort of calm ‘Center of the typhoon’ mode. Until someone comes in and tries to help.

Edit: Just noticed ‘fry cats’

This is anecdotally false. I've hit flow on parkour (noncompetitive), fencing (competitive), and archery (both).

It's not at all about exclusively reacting and asserting that it is misses the point.

Backing up your first point, flow state in competition was most common when my competitor and I were performing at similar levels. Getting stomped, or stomping, did not induce flow.

It's easier in archery because you are not directly reacting to someone else, so even with a lineup of competitors you're still hyperfocusing on the act of the release.

And in all three, you better be paying attention and making decisions. Parkour was probably the best example as I -- or students, to broaden the sample size slightly -- needed to make risk assessments while in the moment.

But it is not at all purely reactionary.

Edit: In order to soften my disagreement slightly, my point is that analysis and flow are not mutually exclusive and being able to integrate decision-making into the mental state is crucial, because it creates an environment where you are able to react intuitively where options are culled to those with the greatest opportunity for success.

I think that’s a bad definition of value. Is child labor valuable? No. No amount of coal or whatever is ever going to make up for the horror of living in a society that could treat its children that way. Even in purely utilitarian terms, child labor is just not valuable. There’s an externality to cruelty that has to be factored in.

If capitalism funnels resources towards band-aids instead of cures (and I get that you might not buy that point yet), then it’s not “dedicating Agency towards problems that generate the most Value.” It is overwhelmingly more valuable for society if diabetes is cured. Imagine all the diabetics currently chained to their dead-end jobs because they can’t afford private insurance getting to start their own businesses and compete.

The problem I have with this argument overall is the extreme flattening of everything into binaries. If you get the capital, you’re Europe. Otherwise, you’re Venezuela. It just doesn’t fit with how these achievements actually get done. Like somebody had to pay for government-subsidized education. And we are ALL richer for it. Every single one of us is better off for having a better informed electorate. Competition is better now that the poor have the education to compete with the rich. There are amazing benefits to public health when everybody has to take chemistry or biology or whatever.

Did we have to SOLVE SCARCITY to outlaw child labor or get public education? No, this “we’ll get around to it later when capitalism fixes everything” rhetoric is just too convenient. It fails to interrogate whether capitalism is actually fixing those things and overlooks the grey areas in between where we can make marginal progress.

I feel like a lot of people here are equating the concept of Wu Wei with the concept of "The Zone"

Wu Wei is different from the zone. It is effortless. It embodies inaction or effortless action.

The zone is more like a state of heightened awareness where your ability to process and react to information is increased. But it's an active state. The entire time you're in the zone, you're exerting effort.

Wu Wei is passive. Effortless. One example that helps describe Wu Wei is the end of Kung Fu Hustle. Many people would consider the final fight a state of Wu Wei for the main character. But it's really the moment he stops fighting.

A lot of martial arts movies will have this concept. Where someone who's completely mastered martial arts has chosen to stop fighting. Because that is Wu Wei.

I teach freediving and it’s one of if not the best example of a flow state

The focus on balancing the challenge of a task against our skill is look at the part of the whole of the system for flow. The dissolution of the sense of self is not the symptom of it, but one of the triggers. I'm sure there are many ways to trigger flow, but really what everyone is searching for is clarity of mind which maximizes the chance of triggering flow in your daily life.

Ill take a stab at trying to help your point as i see it... imagine that the subscribers to this belief are or feel like ants or automatons, or beings or something that are small and inconsequential, and the reducible of all things from to 1 and 0 isn't a large leap of number crunching. from infinite down to zero, more like something small down to zero (Reduce before reducing) continuing in the system as the small who feel smallest see it, to work/live struggle to further add to suffering et al would seem unconscionable so long as suffering et al (you use the perennial trolley problem) would be continuing to grow even as a byproduct of any work or efforts.

In this particular zero sum trap... which I take it you seem to find more funny than tangible as a working philosophy (not saying I disagree)... annihilation is like a death wish.... I think a more fair evaluation would be what is annihilated is the effort and motivation to continue contributing to living (which isn't quite a death wish but no less problematic, I hope we can agree). Like a bug that won't work, or a piece of a system or robot that lies down or spins in place instead of finishing its task/job. The death of traction, or motive to build or create or add to anything is their illness, and that illness can only be described (to them) as suffering.

Which is to say the valuation of that philosophy is that its a problem akin to depression or mental illness that probably doesn't need to be laughed away or casually dismissed but Rather dissected carefully like in an autopsy and studied closely.

I already use Cannabis ... they finally caught up!

Assuming your interpretation is correct, I think this applies to anyone that performs well in sports, if you're a skier, surfer, skater, climber etc. You've definitely had moments where everything links up and you're just reacting. I do believe there are a lot of other things "Flow" can be applied to whether it's writing code giving a speech, or doing a job you are familiar with as examples.

https://themodernexistentialist.substack.com/p/slavery-oppression-and-the-economy?s=w

> Agency is required for Work to be done. When Work is done, it creates Value—because Value is, in itself, an expression of Agency; a piece of Lifespan which has been used and consumed in order to create something that’s considered valuable. In other words: > > Agency is Value… because it is Valued, because it can be transformed into Labor—into: > > Work which has been done. > > Thus, Agency itself—one’s effort and one’s time—is quite literally what we’d call… Human Capital. > > Value is created when Agency is expended. And so, we—human beings—trade our Labor and our Lifetimes in order to create or obtain Resources: the things which we need to survive. > > In this way, Agency is converted into Capital, and is thus stored as things-of-Value—as things which are judged as Valuable by a collective human Subjectivity. After all, it took someone else’s Labor—the investment and expenditure of their human Lifeforce—in order to create or obtain them.

Sure, I would agree that it’s true that capitalism prioritizes dedication of Agency toward problems which are capable of generating the most Value.

While it’s true that diabetics (or any individual or group for that matter) can face exploitation in the Darwinism of a capitalistic system, it is also equally true that in a socialist system any Value which is created must still be made through Labor—and where does the Labor which will fund this Value come from? Or rather, perhaps more appropriately: from whom will we take the necessary Agency with which we’ll then subsidize this new distribution of Value?

If you succeed in securing Capital to fund your social policy, then you get Western Europe; if you fail, then you get Venezuela. But then, let me ask you this question: How has Europe sourced the Capital which funds its progressive social policy?

Do you think that the most expedient method for achieving stable socialist society is by immediately implementing total progressive social policy in the absence of sustainable resource generation? I’m interested to hear what you think a viable solution might be.

I agree on this. Meditation of various sorts emphasize a passivity, a receptivity, and a feeling of non-effort.

Once you are trying to do something, play music or a sport etc., then you’re removing yourself from the meditative mindset.

The only thing I think that binds them together is the phenomenological experience of an absence of conscious thought.

But that which separates them is the focus on completing an activity - a futurally extended intentionality - which betrays the presence that’s imperative in meditation.

This is fascinating. I have ADHD, and soon after my diagnosis I became familiar with the literature involving the Default Mode Network, and its poor network segregation with other networks in ADHD. The dlPFC is one of the DMN structures. The on/off toggle is unpredictable and I don’t have as good conscience ability to control the switch as a neurotypical might.

When I was undiagnosed in college, I’d procrastinate obscenely for very advanced STEM courses, sit through exams and still somehow pass if not excel outright. I’d vaguely be aware that during cramming I was drilling certain skills over others, and tried to make it interesting. But on the day of the test, exam after exam, over again for years, I’d walk out not knowing if I passed, and not knowing how the fuck I even understood much of what I answered. If I did pass/excel I never felt like it was “me.” If anything it brought a lot of distress because I felt the exams were each a fluke, and that I didn’t actually acquire my degrees and didn’t deserve to have them. It’s not something I bragged about, it brought a lot of shame and distress.

But now I’m thinking about my functioning in a different lens especially how I can trust it more and see my improvement for what it is.

In meditation, we call this state of consciousness Samadhi

It's more fun to drive a slow car fast, than a fast car slow.

So skill based matchmaking

The Tao that can be named Is not the eternal Tao

Very good explanation of flow and taking neuroscience into acount without making it to complex.

One thing I would like to add is that you can get to a state of flow through meditation as well.

By taking your time to let every intrusive thought go by till your reach the no thought realm. This no thought realm and only consciousness can be felt in the seconds even without that much training.

You basically try to observe the seconds that pase by between each thought. This feeling of not thinking you than try to extend.

Source: own experience and making sense by sam Harris