flowing like water; hard like stone

I noticed in your recent post that you described "rhetorical aikido", which you called a Daoist technique. I have studied the Tao Te Ching's text a fair bit over the past few years, and I find its philosophy to be quite useful as a "theme" or "virtue".

I've not had the opportunity to speak with others who seem to understand the Daoist perspective, so I thought this could be an interesting opportunity to expand my understanding a bit.

I am flattered you feel I give the impression of understanding the Daoist perspective. I have read only the first sentence of the Tao Te Ching, yet I too find its philosophy to be useful. I thought this could be an interesting opportunity to expand my understanding a bit.

In that case, I'll mention some of the things that suggested you understood the perspective to me.

I'll repeat the first sentence of the "Tao Te Ching" so that anyone who hasn't read it can see its warning: "Dao called Dao is not Dao." One of the big concepts repeatedly alluded to is that you can't write down what the "Way" is, at best you can gesture in its direction.

Some things I noticed in the post:

• The process of the rhetorical aikido described immediately felt right to call Daoist, at least according to my intuition
  • The emphasis on avoiding open assertion of your own perspective aligns with the oft-repeated concept of "the sage does not contend"
  • Leading the other person into noticing a possible contradiction aligns with tactics the "Art of War" would suggest, where they might not even notice a plan is afoot
• The idea that the technique is meant to be used with those who are legitimately curious also matches the principle of "do not contend"

"Welcome to Lsusr's rationality dojo," I replied, "Today is not your first day."

This statement also caught my eye, albeit not for reasons of resembling the Daoist perspective.

Yes. The techniques you point to are indeed Daoist. Not immediately stating your own beliefs follows Laozi's guidelines in the Tao Te Ching. Not immediately revealing your own intentions follows Sunzi's guidelines in The Art of War.

You are also correct in noticing that "Today is not your first day" comes from elsewhere. I stole it from qntm's There is no Antimemetics Division.

I think the fact that you can distinguish Daoist techniques from non-Daoist techniques indicates that we're pointing to something real when we use the word "Daoist".

It's nice to see that we seem to be pointing in a similar direction. I have gleaned much of my knowledge from a large variety of texts and documents over the years, but the sheer breadth of that intake leads to concerns about the standalone qualities of each source. I try to focus on reading "core texts" as primary sources, but there's always a chance that later documents point out "obvious problems" that I'll have to identify and correct myself.

I would like to get your thoughts on the "end goal" I aim to get from Daoism.

One of the big things I encountered in college was flow state, and I suspect that you'll have some familiarity with it. As I began studying it, I found myself wondering if the Daoist "sage" could live in flow state at all times.

This struck my past self as a fascinating ideal to pursue, even if I end up with only a partial replication, and I'm curious what you think of it.

Bhante Gunaratana, author of Mindfulness in Plain English, identified a Daoist monk in an airport just from the way he moved.

Interesting. I've spent some time around people who utilize flow state fairly often, and there are noticeable differences you can spot.

As I practiced trying to maximize my time spent in flow state while retaining productivity, I eventually found that I had to break the flow when certain levels of problem appeared, and I shifted my "ideal" to "being in the right mode at any given time".

Flowing like water. Hard like stone.

That's the idea. Let things flow by when there's no need to "contend", but be ready to work when it's time.

Flow state is being in the right mode. But the right mode sometimes is to not be in a flow state. The paradox is not intrinsic to reality—just our words. It comes from an ambiguity in an implicit assumption.

There are multiple levels at which we can be in a flow state. It's like looking at a fractal at different scales. Sometimes a higher-order non-contention involves lower-order contention.

Seems like now might be a good time to introduce the concept of "wuwei" (which you might translate non-contention).

I'd be interested to hear more about it. I'm unable to read the Tao Te Ching in its original language, so I'm forced to extrapolate from whatever English translation I end up looking at.

Wuwei (無為) is an important concept within Daoism. It has two parts: wu (無) and wei (為). Wu is easy to translate. Wu just means "without". "Wei" (為) is the difficult part. It can be translated as action, intention, proaction, force, deliberateness, non-flow, intervention or—as you do—contention.

One example of wuwei can be found in Daoist political theory. The figurehead Japanese emperor isn't supposed to really do anything directly except lead by example. Done properly, the emperor can't be blamed for any disasters. In this way, the Japanese imperial line has survived for well over 2,000 years.

One technique I use personally is to hint or gesture at ideas I want to communicate, instead of stating them explicitly. If I say "$x$ is true", then that provokes "no because…". But if I ask "what is $x$", then the answer is "true". Sometimes I go even further and say "$x$ is untrue", satirically.

That sounds like the concept in my head behind "contention" and its inverse is less astray than expected.

The technique you describe sounds similar to some things I do. A technique I use from the same "skill tree" is to offer people only some guidance towards the "hard part" of a problem, which I've found to return the best ratio of investment to growth of the recipient.

It is less effective with people who struggle to improvise during problem solving, but I've found that I struggle to efficiently assist that category of person regardless of the techniques I try. I suspect that this stems from my underlying perspectives.

Yes. I originally learned this technique when tutoring physics. If I said "here's how you do this problem", then the student won't learn how to do the next problem.

Some people are indeed simply unteachable. What I've gotten better at over time is calibration. I am forever getting better at tailoring the right puzzle for the person I'm interacting with.

To return to the topic of my "Daoist sage" that I envisioned, I think your definition of wuwei seems to align with the form it now takes.