A concept of effortless action in Chinese philosophy allows life to unfold naturally
By Annie Katz
Wu Wei, a concept in Chinese philosophy, means effortless action. Wu Wei reminds me to go with the flow, value intuition and inspiration, and allow life to unfold naturally. I’m drawn to this idea, because I often think too much, try too hard, rush ahead, spin my wheels and worry myself into a nervous wreck. The opposite of Wu Wei.
Wu Wei is like surfing the waves of reality rather than trying to dominate the waves, tame them, ignore them or fight them. Waves happen. Better to surf them skillfully than to bully them into submission. Wu Wei means being in the zone, that place where time stands still, attention is flawless and extraordinary things happen.
In one of the wisdom books I’m reading, the author advocates celebrating our successes instead of dwelling on our failures. Rather than cataloging all the times I’m not living Wu Wei, I’m applauding the times that I go with the flow.
Yesterday, rather than turning down the hill toward the creek for my daily walk, I followed my intuition, which inspired me to walk all the way to the end of a road near my country cottage. It was a lovely, cold, wet afternoon, with the slightest sprinkling of icy rain. I wore my winter coat, warm hat and mittens, and heavy socks. A cozy, peaceful, contemplative walk where I saw a few gentle horses, no cars, no humans and no dogs.
As I neared the end of the road, a big, beautiful red fox ran right in front of me. It came from between two large clumps of plumed pampas grass on the side of the road. When it saw me, it whipped around and ran back the way it had come. Stunned, I said aloud, “That was a fox!”
I walked on and saw the fox lope across a large landscaped yard and into a wooded area. I’d never had such a close encounter with a fox before, and I was struck by how gorgeous it was and how fortunate I was to be in the right place at the right time. If I hadn’t listened to my intuition, I would have missed this once-in-a-lifetime experience. The magic of Wu Wei!
In my writing life, I’ve had to learn to get over myself and to set aside my inner critic and my inner slave driver. Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved reading novels and wanted to write one of my own. I studied English literature, read hundreds of novels and dozens of writing books, took creative writing classes, taught English composition classes, worked as a technical editor, forced myself to write a certain number of pages a day and finally gave up.
But giving up was the beginning of something wonderful. Turns out I can’t write a novel, but I can surrender to the creative process and allow novels to write themselves through me. I’m 75, and during the past 15 years nine novels have been written though me.
I can’t write fiction, but I can set aside my personality, my ego, my logical mind, my inner bully and dive into a deep ocean of creativity where art happens naturally. I can allow myself to be carried away by a story day after day until I end up with a messy first draft of a novel that I never could have written through iron-fisted willpower.
After letting the draft rest, I turn it over to my inner critic, the Editor, and after months or years, another novel is complete. Wu Wei and the art of writing novels? Perhaps. What’s your Wu Wei?
Annie Katz is a retired educator living in Ashland. She has studied philosophy and spiritual practices all her life and now writes novels for fun. Readers may contact her at [email protected].
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