I practice an extremely simplified form of tai chi that involves a lot of cyclical movements (up and down, forward circle, backward circle, pulling in and pushing away).
I believe it has a lot of health benefits, but sometimes I wonder if the biggest benefit of the practice is just to keep me noticing and accepting of all the other aspects of life that are cyclical.
If "the correct choice will be obvious in retrospect" were true, we'd repeat the same mistake over and over much less often. We rationalize, rewrite, and ignore our pasts. Auditing accurately is a skill, not an obvious given. So "do what seems right in the moment" works only as well as your sense of "right" is calibrated, rather than influenced by bias, emotion, external influence, etc. Retrospection is the practice of calibration - which can't be done from inside your own head only. It's not about balance, like you say. It's about alignment, tuned in hindsight, applied with steadily improving accuracy in the moment.
I don't think it's possible to constantly improve the accuracy. We contain multitudes so one alignment is not going to happen for most people (do you align with your creative ambition or with spending time with your children? Both are important and it's ok not to have a single lane).
You can have many roles and interests, but just one life, so my point is about making trade-offs (not balance) to align your one life in a coherent way where all your roles and interests contribute rather than conflict. Each of us has a pattern in how we operate that underly the way approaching parenting, work, creative work, Substacks we subscribe to and comment on. Better to understand that pattern and work with it rather than against it.
Hard for me to visualise how it would work in practice without an example. Is an example pattern "I'll do the best I can"? I doubt there is a specific right pattern that always works, especially when we juggle full time jobs, children and everything else.
in general i agree. the relative (debug your brain) and the absolute (forget your identity) seem to contradict each other and i've found that i just need to hold both as true, bringing in each one when they're helpful.
with the ambition vs acceptance dilemma, however, i wonder if it's a false dichotomy.
the question i'd be curious to ask your friend is what it would be like to accept and relax into their ambition?
acceptance and relaxation doesn't mean, to me, doing nothing. i see it more as a way of relating to what i'm doing. indeed, we can do nothing, and still not be accepting or relaxed.
I hear this kind of message—that relaxed ambition is possible. But surveying the people I know who get shit done, myself included, this almost never seems to be true. I believe more in the commonsensical account: doing good things is hard, it takes concern, you will avoid that unless you have some incentive to care. You can reduce superfluous suffering around that concern and trying, and learn to enjoy the work, but it’s still going to take work.
totally. your point at the end, is the point i'm getting at as well: the distinction between something being hard, and the hard thing causing suffering
everyone i know who gets shit done is doing hard work
most are suffering through it. probably 99%.
but not all, at least not all the time.
personally, i've experienced moments myself (after a whole lot of inner work) where i'm getting shit done and working really hard, but not suffering, even when things aren't going well. those moments are happening more and more often these days.
i think we can care about something without that care coming from suffering.
another way of posing the question to your friend would be, what would it be like to accept and relax into the hard work they feel called (or are required) to do?
I feel like the very fact that you admit that fespite yourself you are still trying to find an overarching solution to overacting in both directions undercuts your message. What is likey happening is some part of you realizes that if you were more accurately calibrated in your actions, you could do useful moves on a more meta level, but for one reason or another you are struggling to do this. If you were to succeed (and you probably will eventually, at least for some of the problems you describe) things wouldn't "become static", you would simply grow more powerful and have different problem then.
This resonates deeply. That phrase is very useful. Conflict seems like it’s just an inevitable part of our lives, and we have an instinct to move in directions that reduce conflict - but there’s no reason to expect there is a “there to arrive at” so much as a stance towards conflict one can adopt right now: I don’t know precisely what I want, and that’s ok.
Excellent. Are you familiar with "Existential Kink," by Carolyn Elliott? Her thesis is that we are spiritual beings who chose to incarnate to experience a material existence -- and we want it ALL! The stuff we are not supposed to love, like sadness, anger... we dig it -- it has its own signature, a distinct tang, that we can appreciate. It also gives us contrast, so we can appreciate the "good" stuff even more.
Emily Oster (economist) has a saying: "there’s no secret option C." She mentions it when advising new moms on pregnancy and early parenting choices, but it's so universally useful. Often, when I'm faced with two tough choices or trying to reconcile perspectives A and B, I notice that I'm not actually getting closer to a decision; I'm just looking for the secret option C that I implicitly believe must exist. Once I understand that no amount of searching is going to make secret option C appear*, it immediately becomes much easier to evaluate and decide what to do.
*in some circumstances, there really is a secret option C, which can make this a sticky cycle...
Yes. These do not mix and they do not go away. And they are everywhere. Example: I am on the train right now, sitting next to a stressed out tired out mom carrying a peaceful sleeping baby on her chest.
What a slicer holy moly. Cheeky as hell pretending to abandon resolution on the face whilst offering the only *real* form of it: unclenching from the heart and letting the mind let it go altogether.
Perhaps when they speak of spells they mean strings of words like this, dense with a je ne sais quoi that sink 'em straight down past the mind into the heart. Much to ponder.
Great read. Reminds me of something Martin Amis said: “Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth, Venus, is that nobody gets over anything.“
There's a trap for overthinkers; we look for an answer or solution that's elegant, and covers 100% of everything - and that solution doesn't exist. In order to move forward, one must accept that somethings cannot be addressed/solved/remedied because the "perfect" solution is a trap. Just another way to either give in to despair (there will never be an answer) or idleness (will fix things once I've done 'research.')
Perhaps wisdom is not finding the perfect balance between opposing forces, but learning how to move between them without demanding that the movement end.
Loved this essay. I've had similar thoughts but never articulated in such a clear way. And yes you are right the creeping in keeps coming back. Now that I know resolution is impossible, that will resolve things. Alas...
I practice an extremely simplified form of tai chi that involves a lot of cyclical movements (up and down, forward circle, backward circle, pulling in and pushing away).
I believe it has a lot of health benefits, but sometimes I wonder if the biggest benefit of the practice is just to keep me noticing and accepting of all the other aspects of life that are cyclical.
Beautiful. Someday I’ll pick up Tai Chi, seems inevitable tbh
If "the correct choice will be obvious in retrospect" were true, we'd repeat the same mistake over and over much less often. We rationalize, rewrite, and ignore our pasts. Auditing accurately is a skill, not an obvious given. So "do what seems right in the moment" works only as well as your sense of "right" is calibrated, rather than influenced by bias, emotion, external influence, etc. Retrospection is the practice of calibration - which can't be done from inside your own head only. It's not about balance, like you say. It's about alignment, tuned in hindsight, applied with steadily improving accuracy in the moment.
Perhaps not in immediate retrospection
Perhaps not ever, so it helps to have trusted and truth-seeking external editors of our retrospection - and then to actually buy into their edits.
A huge upside of marriage ime
Ha, same. And huge downside for many other partnerships with "bad" editors.
I don't think it's possible to constantly improve the accuracy. We contain multitudes so one alignment is not going to happen for most people (do you align with your creative ambition or with spending time with your children? Both are important and it's ok not to have a single lane).
You can have many roles and interests, but just one life, so my point is about making trade-offs (not balance) to align your one life in a coherent way where all your roles and interests contribute rather than conflict. Each of us has a pattern in how we operate that underly the way approaching parenting, work, creative work, Substacks we subscribe to and comment on. Better to understand that pattern and work with it rather than against it.
Hard for me to visualise how it would work in practice without an example. Is an example pattern "I'll do the best I can"? I doubt there is a specific right pattern that always works, especially when we juggle full time jobs, children and everything else.
> Photo credit goes to Daido Moriyama.
His work is transcendent but not THAT transcendent.
in general i agree. the relative (debug your brain) and the absolute (forget your identity) seem to contradict each other and i've found that i just need to hold both as true, bringing in each one when they're helpful.
with the ambition vs acceptance dilemma, however, i wonder if it's a false dichotomy.
the question i'd be curious to ask your friend is what it would be like to accept and relax into their ambition?
acceptance and relaxation doesn't mean, to me, doing nothing. i see it more as a way of relating to what i'm doing. indeed, we can do nothing, and still not be accepting or relaxed.
I hear this kind of message—that relaxed ambition is possible. But surveying the people I know who get shit done, myself included, this almost never seems to be true. I believe more in the commonsensical account: doing good things is hard, it takes concern, you will avoid that unless you have some incentive to care. You can reduce superfluous suffering around that concern and trying, and learn to enjoy the work, but it’s still going to take work.
totally. your point at the end, is the point i'm getting at as well: the distinction between something being hard, and the hard thing causing suffering
everyone i know who gets shit done is doing hard work
most are suffering through it. probably 99%.
but not all, at least not all the time.
personally, i've experienced moments myself (after a whole lot of inner work) where i'm getting shit done and working really hard, but not suffering, even when things aren't going well. those moments are happening more and more often these days.
i think we can care about something without that care coming from suffering.
another way of posing the question to your friend would be, what would it be like to accept and relax into the hard work they feel called (or are required) to do?
Yin and Yang, Solve et Coagula, "The Accomplished Yogi is untouched by the movements of the gunas".
I feel like the very fact that you admit that fespite yourself you are still trying to find an overarching solution to overacting in both directions undercuts your message. What is likey happening is some part of you realizes that if you were more accurately calibrated in your actions, you could do useful moves on a more meta level, but for one reason or another you are struggling to do this. If you were to succeed (and you probably will eventually, at least for some of the problems you describe) things wouldn't "become static", you would simply grow more powerful and have different problem then.
Ew get your hope for resolution away from me
I'm sorry, friend. Sometimes it would be easier if there was no hope, but there can be no hope of that too.
This resonates deeply. That phrase is very useful. Conflict seems like it’s just an inevitable part of our lives, and we have an instinct to move in directions that reduce conflict - but there’s no reason to expect there is a “there to arrive at” so much as a stance towards conflict one can adopt right now: I don’t know precisely what I want, and that’s ok.
Excellent. Are you familiar with "Existential Kink," by Carolyn Elliott? Her thesis is that we are spiritual beings who chose to incarnate to experience a material existence -- and we want it ALL! The stuff we are not supposed to love, like sadness, anger... we dig it -- it has its own signature, a distinct tang, that we can appreciate. It also gives us contrast, so we can appreciate the "good" stuff even more.
It's one of my favorite books.
Mine, too. It's a real game-changer. Like "without hope of resolution." That's not what we're here for.
Emily Oster (economist) has a saying: "there’s no secret option C." She mentions it when advising new moms on pregnancy and early parenting choices, but it's so universally useful. Often, when I'm faced with two tough choices or trying to reconcile perspectives A and B, I notice that I'm not actually getting closer to a decision; I'm just looking for the secret option C that I implicitly believe must exist. Once I understand that no amount of searching is going to make secret option C appear*, it immediately becomes much easier to evaluate and decide what to do.
*in some circumstances, there really is a secret option C, which can make this a sticky cycle...
Yes. These do not mix and they do not go away. And they are everywhere. Example: I am on the train right now, sitting next to a stressed out tired out mom carrying a peaceful sleeping baby on her chest.
What a slicer holy moly. Cheeky as hell pretending to abandon resolution on the face whilst offering the only *real* form of it: unclenching from the heart and letting the mind let it go altogether.
Perhaps when they speak of spells they mean strings of words like this, dense with a je ne sais quoi that sink 'em straight down past the mind into the heart. Much to ponder.
Great read. Reminds me of something Martin Amis said: “Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth, Venus, is that nobody gets over anything.“
There's a trap for overthinkers; we look for an answer or solution that's elegant, and covers 100% of everything - and that solution doesn't exist. In order to move forward, one must accept that somethings cannot be addressed/solved/remedied because the "perfect" solution is a trap. Just another way to either give in to despair (there will never be an answer) or idleness (will fix things once I've done 'research.')
Perhaps wisdom is not finding the perfect balance between opposing forces, but learning how to move between them without demanding that the movement end.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here
Loved this essay. I've had similar thoughts but never articulated in such a clear way. And yes you are right the creeping in keeps coming back. Now that I know resolution is impossible, that will resolve things. Alas...