Dr. k (healthygamerGG) dropped a new video titled “make life easy” today, and it was a kinda complicated one. He didn’t do a great job of getting to the point.
But he made an interesting point that a balanced mind does things naturally, an unbalanced mind needs to be forced to do things against its will. We call that willpower, and then glorify it, which is crazy considering the fact that what we’re glorifying is mental weakness and enough imbalance that force is required.
There’s also a mind of “passion” which WANTS to do things, which, in Dr. k’s world, is not balanced either. That’s not the goal. The goal is a neutral mind, neither motivated nor lethargic. Balanced.
It’s an interesting concept. Makes me reconsider my normally very fond opinion of David Goggins and Jocko Willink. They’re always going to be great and have great lessons, but it’s possible that the be-all-end-all of productivity might not actually be willpower, but that impossible to truly understand Wu Wei Si (action without action)
And the fact that nobody has a balanced mind and nobody can understand Wu Wei Si unless they’re already doing Wu Wei Si is probably why willpower is the dominant narrative