#wuwei

do we really need to get smarter

The human desire for knowledge acquisition is always a treasure, particularly as it fills the gaps that experience does not, but has it always been encouraged?

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die. ”.

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Genesis 2:16-17, NIV.

The Abrahamic God is unhappy with the first man on earth, Adam, and Eve’s decision to indulge in the ‘fruit of knowledge’ following his prior warning.

The fruit led Adam and Eve out of Eden and into physical and emotional turmoil, for instance, Adam’s need for treacherous labor and Eve’s pain of childbirth, both pertaining to survival.

But that doesn’t entice me as much; the emotional turmoil does. “Disconcerted by nudity” would imply that gaining human consciousness is an impediment?

Despite your beliefs, the Lord in all forms of mythology and religious dogma represents an authority providing the perfect cookie-cutter advice to help the average layman achieve a happy and fulfilling life.

The Myth of Pandora’s Box (Fun fact: Actually a jar!, A mistranslation error that stuck around.)

Refers to Pandora, the woman created by the Greek gods as instructed by Zeus to “punish” the titan Prometheus and mankind, as the titan had stolen fire and given it to the people.

The gods, during creation, “gifted” her with four gifts: beauty from Aphrodite, skills and craftsmanship from Hermes, and curiosity and a tricky nature.

Pandora, due to her curiosity although warned by Zeus, opens the jar/box/pithos

Lo and behold, evil spirits that contain the struggles of mankind!

Disease and illness

Pain and suffering

Death and mortality (or awareness of it)

Hard labor and exhaustion

Misery, grief, and sorrow

Chaos and misfortune

Curiousity is treated as naive and with inevitable negative consequences.

Daoism is an ancient Chinese philosophical spiritual system that centers on living in harmony with the “dao,” or “the way,” which is understood as the natural flow and order of the universe.

At the heart of Daoist thought is the idea that reality works best when left in its natural state.

The Tao Te Ching argues that human beings often create problems and disparities by trying too hard to control life, define it rigidly, or force outcomes through planning and ambition. From this perspective, “ignorance” is not praised as stupidity, but rather as choosing a happier life.

A person who is too focused on categorizing, judging, and manipulating everything may lose touch with the natural flow of life, while someone who lives simply and intuitively is closer to harmony. This can be combatted with ‘’Wu Wei,’‘ directly translating to non-action or effortless action in which a person responds to life with a natural balance without striving for too much to avoid disturbance.

Common trope?

The concept “Wu Wei” appears in early Daoist texts like the Tao Te Ching (6th–4th century BCE) and was fully developed and expanded later in texts like the Zhuangzi (4th–3rd century BCE). The myth of Pandora’s Box appears in the Greek poet Hesiod in the late 7th or 8th century BCE in his epic poems Theogony (c. 750-700 BCE) and Works and Days (c. 700 BCE). Proponents argue that the first mention of Adam and Eve was when Moses wrote the Exodus from Egypt, roughly in 1450-1400 BCE. Conversely, post-exilic biblical scholars believe that it was written prior to the proponent’s assumption, in the 5th or 6th century BCE.

Whatever view you subscribe to, the common themes between the three tales linger throughout society and how we as a populace navigate through life.

So why does every way of life advise you to avoid the constant strive for knowledge you do not need?

I reckon that an overconsumption of knowledge leads to an unfulfillment in life because of multiple factors.

“Don’t place temptation in someone’s path if you wouldn’t want them to fall.” Nothing seems to satisfy them anymore…no matter how far they go, thickening their greed for unattainable goals.

A study published in the journal “High intelligence: A risk factor for psychological and physiological overexcitabilities” (Karpinski et al., 2016) examines the correlation between high intelligence and higher reporting of mental health conditions (anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc.) and physical conditions (allergies, autoimmune issues, and asthma).

The study was a survey-based study with a sample of 3,715 members of American Mensa

(people with IQ 130+, so very high intelligence), which was then compared with the average population.

The results revealed that highly intelligent people had reported the following:

higher rates of anxiety and mood disorders (RR 1.20 - 223.08).

increased likelihood of ADHD and autism-related traits

More physical health issues like allergies and autoimmune diseases (RR 1.84 - 4.33).

The study concluded with an “explanation” asserted by the researchers.

Hyperbody and Hyperbrain theory

The theory suggested by Karpinski proposes the idea that individuals with high intelligence may have a more reactive and sensitive brain, piggybacking on the key concept of “overexciteabilities” (originally from Kazimierz Dabrowski’s theory), which refers to heightened intensity of how some individuals process and interpret the world around them.

These overexcitabilities can often be intellectual, such as overanalysis, which is aggravated by supporting ones such as emotional (strong and intense feelings), sensory (heightened sensitivity to sounds, sights, or physical stimuli), and sometimes imaginational (rich and vivid mental activity); meaning their minds are more active, reflective, and prone to overthinking, which can contribute to anxiety or rumination, therefore leading to depression.

In the Bhagavad Gita a common mention is an individual’s “dharma,” which translates to duties in a large cosmic order. Dharma emphasizes stability and continuity, meaning individuals are encouraged to act within existing structures rather than challenge them. I argue that as a person is more aware of his dharma or duties in correlation with injustices and inequalities in life, it may lead to him feeling helpless or pathetic within a structural context where he lacks individual agency—much like a rock thrown into a pond is unlikely to cause erosion.

This is apparent in the contemporary global reaction to political instabilities,

Research supports the assumption that socio-political awareness may have negative effects on mental well-being only when people perceive themselves as having no influence on the situation. For instance, Xue Yang et al. (2020) conducted a population-based study involving 420 adults from Hong Kong, whose perceptions regarding political and social situations as well as emotional and depressive symptoms were assessed using a questionnaire. As a result, the authors discovered that respondents expecting socio-political conditions such as increased inequalities, instabilities, and even conflicts were prone to experience greater symptoms of depression as well as lower levels of life satisfaction. However, it is important to note that this link between variables was indirect, as it could be explained by psychological mediators such as frustration, emotional distress, insecurity, and inability to change the socio-political situation due to lack of self-efficacy. Thus, being aware of problems in society did not lead to psychological problems per se but rather when coupled with an inability to do anything about them.

Throughout different cultures and societies, there persists an ambiguity surrounding whether knowledge serves to either free or oppress the human mind. In myths, philosophy, and even contemporary psychology, knowledge is consistently portrayed as something that offers insight and yet at the same time causes unease. Instead of asking if ignorance is happiness, perhaps the issue should be if humans are capable of bearing the burden of knowledge.

Maybe we should stop reading and put our phones down.

Brainrot AI slop for everybody!

Dunces are happier after all.

(Rare photo of Alan Watts & Jiddu Krishnamurti)

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"Don’t ever force a lock; you’ll bend the key or break the lock. You jiggle until it revolves. So, Wúwéi is to act in accordance with the pattern of things as they exist, not to impose on any situation a kind of interference that is not in accordance with the situation.

For example, we have a slum, and the people are in difficulty, and they need better housing. Now, if you go in with a bulldozer and knock the slum down, and you put in its place by some architect’s imaginative notions of what is a super-efficient highrise apartment building to store people, you create a total mess. Utter chaos. A slum has what we would call an ecology. It has a very complex system of relationships going in it by which the thing is already a going concern, even though it isn’t going very well. Anybody who wants to alter that situation must first of all become sensitive to all the conditions and relationships going on there.

It’s terribly important, then, to have this feeling of the interdependence of every form of life upon every other form of life."

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无为 /wúwéi/ EFFORTLESS ACTION (or Enlightened Action) is one of the most inspiring concepts of Chinese philosophy.

It may sound strange to people in the West, because Western culture is all about ME, ME, ME while 无为 comes from the recognition that Ego is an illusion.

But the stranger it sounds the more valid and valuable it is, especially now at the time of the inevitable collapse of the decaying Western culture.

The literal translation is No-action, but that doesn’t mean that we should be passive.

The position of Wúwéi is a position of total Freedom.

That is the position when our judgement and therefor our actions aren’t corrupted by our desires, ambitions, our wants and needs - basically by our ego.

When we act in the 无为 way, we act like a free medium of Life itself.

The action happens through us.

“Gerry Lopez, Soul Pipeline, Ohahu, 1971″

photo by Jeff Divine