Tag: daoism

48

a daost-adjacent(?) principle for [utopian/humane] economy

One should only do what one is best at – even the best at

One should commit ones life to what one is the best at – one shouldn’t choose an occupation/career if one knows that someone else will be better than one at it.

If there is no profession that one can be the best at, one can still find something that one is the best at – whether this means opening a [unique] new path or performing a roll (better than anyone else could, due to your identity) in your community/family, in your unique position relative to your specific web of relations…*

Imagine this world, where things are only done by those who are best at them.**

Every individual going that path that fits them, as opposed to being forced down a path that fits the demands of capital/reality – thus equal opportunity for fulfillment of ones desire for life and meaning.

*Or if you want, think of this analytically and more generally in the typical way: as increasing the number of relata in the relational ‘best at’ predicate…

**All but the very best worker, i.e. the master of craft, replaced by machines [and of course apprentices…But do those apprentices simply learn the same craft in the hopes of becoming the best, or simply learn it because it’s what one feels one could do best in among all things one considers doing? Or does apprenticeship change its meaning, so that in every apprenticeship it is implicit that the end of the path is not doing the same as your master, but doing something at least slightly different, something that you will be better at than even the master?]?

February 11th,

a [quasi-]corollary occurred to me:

[whenever possible,] One should only give attention to something if there is no other person who is more interested in that thing…

Obviously, this has particularly weird consequences for mass-media/social media and cultural content.


47

a somewhat daoist practical principle:

Only do what you know how to do.

(If you don’t know how, then don’t try to do it – & therefore instead simply relax and let your intuition/instinct/body take control/act/be – i.e. acting without doing, without deciding/willing/forcing/planning)

to understand this principle,

a) consider what it means to know how to do something. E.g. taken radically/strictly it implies complete confidence in acting/performing the task exactly correctly/fittingly/suitably.

&

b) consider what happens when one stops, relaxes and trusts in ones unconscious/body to guide ones behaviour/movement

So this prescribes a radically un-compromising duality: If one doesn’t know exactly how to do something, one simply doesn’t do it. But in practise this just means that ones waits until one finds an easier/simpler thing to do – one which ones knows how to do – before maybe again rationally considering the harder task…

So I don’t think this excludes learning, in fact i think this is an idea about learning: until one knows something, in other words until one has learnt it, one doesn’t DO it in the strict/rational/willful sense, instead one just plays at it, without pretending that one has the exact model, plan and ability for it – without premature discipline.


Don’t push if you don’t know what you’re pushing towards – if you don’t know where you’re going…. We don’t know where we’re going.