Concept tag
#wu-wei
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Wu wei for burnt-out founders: what did Laozi actually mean?
After Stoicism, I've been reading the Daodejing. One idea that hits hard is wu wei, usually translated "non-action" or "effortless action". Chapter 48 says that in pursuing learning you add something every day, but in pursuing the Dao you let something go…
Started by Rohan Desai1 reply -
Is the “flow state” players reach in a good game the same thing as wu wei, or a false friend?
I design puzzle games for a small studio in Tainan. Our whole craft is building challenges that match a player's skill closely enough that they lose track of time. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called this "flow": deep absorption, loss of self-consciousness, action…
Started by Hsieh Wei-ting6 replies -
Nineteen years with one blade: Cook Ding and the discipline that wu wei is usually sold without
A customer from Europe, watching me cut a joint in my workshop, told me it looked effortless and that I must be practising wu wei. She had read a book about it on holiday. I asked her what it meant and she…
Started by Hicham Ouazzani6 replies -
Translating wu wei as “effortless action” does more harm than good; better to leave it untranslated
I spend my working life with words that will not cross borders. Wu wei is a strange case for me, because in Vietnamese it already exists as a Sino-Vietnamese word, vô vi, and it carries baggage that English translators rarely notice. Consider…
Started by Vũ Quốc Bảo6 replies -
Was Laozi the first laissez-faire economist? Why wu wei is not the invisible hand
Every few years a younger colleague at work brings me a quotation from the Laozi with great excitement. "The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people." "Governing a large state is like cooking a small fish": don't keep poking it. And…
Started by Javier Ferrandis6 replies