strategically pathetic

Time to unveil the counterintuitive secret behind my relentless drive and discipline: being strategically pathetic.

This is the essence of yin-yang: true power emerges when you first empty yourself completely.

A new student just told me he his plan for to go cold turkey on cigarettes, meat, alcohol and coffee for three days.

I like to lead by example.

To show solidarity, I devised something similar. While I don’t consume any of the above, I decided to take a couple of days eating just one meal, drinking no tea, taking a break from hard exercise and not using my devices.

To bring up my Yang (doing hard stuff) energy, I first reduce all Yang energy from my life. Most try to paint over the rust by pumping themselves up with David Goggins motivational videos (we’ve all been there).

It is important that I carve out space where it is safe to be pathetic. This has been part of my historic use of meditation retreats. In particular, I devoted the first few days of each of my 12-21-day darkness retreats (solitary confinement with the lights off) to curling up in a ball, sleeping and exerting no effort whatsoever. I become a vegetable with no effort, ambition or obligations. And after allowing all residual tiredness to drain from my system, the phoenix rises from the ashes.

For this mini experiment, I found an ancient temple in Songshan Mountain with a 2,000 year-old tree. I leave my devices behind and dissolve into the nature.

I visualised all my exhaustion sinking into the ground and being absorbed by the tree. I visualise the tree’s own energy entering my body.

In a few hours of strategic patheticness, I accomplish the restoration that weeks of holidays often fail to deliver.

Here’s a photo of the temple itself, with two lovely ladies I befriended who sit there in meditation every day.

THE TAKEAWAY

If you feel your battery low, siphon off at least a day to be strategically pathetic.

Cut everything that taxes your nervous system: alcohol, caffeine, other intoxicants, meat, sugar, excess work, tech scrolling etc. In particular, dropping caffeine will cut your dopamine levels to the point where you have no motivation to do anything stressful.

Set up camp in a quiet spot in nature, a temple or spa — somewhere you can fully melt.

Discover the true power that arises from stillness.