November 11, 2011
50K Day11: Wei Wu Wei
So this week is going splendidly, 4 days in and already achieved 50% more volume than the total of last week. Am taking a 5BI shot at 100nl and it's going pretty well so far. Still running insanely hot but not as hot as Ken!
Obviously it's a lot easier to play when you're winning, but lately I've felt a lot changing and putting in more sessions has become a lot more effortless, not to mention more motivating. I'm reading the Tao of Pooh which is an explanation of Taoism through Winnie the Pooh (it's actually a really good medium for it) and it talks about a concept I really like called "Wei Wu Wei". This literally translates to "action without action" or "effortless doing" and the Tao explains this as natural action like a stream flowing over and around some rocks.
So before I would wake up and think "oh I have to get prepared for poker" and do all the right things I'm meant to do to get ready for poker, then during my session when I started getting a little tired I'd try to concentrate harder and push myself. But now I just let all that go and well to sound cliche... go with the flow. I get up and maybe chill outside, play with my cats, whatever, I'll start a poker session when it feels right. When I start getting tired of making mistakes I won't struggle and fight against it I'll just accept it for what it is and go with it. And it's really been amazing in all areas of my life, I'm far more productive and getting more done (even though I'm putting way less effort in), I'm having really good times with my friends. I'm paying less attention to the results (in everything) and thus allowing myself to enjoy the ride more.
4 Comments:
cam167 posted on November 11, 2011 at 21:14 PM
Nice running Mitch, hope you keep it up, and will you win at some PLO already :)
About the taoism thing, I looked really quickly at wiki, and read a bit more about it in my "religions of the world" book, and it looks interesting.
One question about religions like these (spiritual ones), when you read about taoism, do you think to yourself, "uh cool concepts, ima try and follow a couple of these and see where it takes me" or do you really believe in the spiritual aspect, with the immortality, exorcism and such?
Because I was doing some reading about buddhism a while back, and thought it was really interesting, about the meditating, and being happier over all, but I'm not very spiritual by nature, so in the end I don't believe in immortality and such, so I was just wondering if you could kinda do a semi package deal, where you practice some of the rituals, but don't buy into the spiritual aspect of it?
sorry for the rant, tbh I don't even know if all of this makes sense :)
I just find stuff like this really interesting :)
aaaaaaaanyways GL to you sir.
mitch posted on November 12, 2011 at 03:48 AM
Yeah I get what you mean, and I guess I use these things as philosophies or tools and consider the things which have no basis in science like certain gods, etc interesting stories used as vehicles to explain the underlying ideas.
But a lot of the ideas, especially on the Eastern Religions actually make you see reality more accurately, which I think is really important. So there's this Hindu Mantra they do before they eat food which is basically "I'm taking energy (food) into energy (consciousness) through energy (body) as a sacrifice to energy (god)" now god's a pretty broad term so you can make that whatever you want, but everything before is actually what happens when you eat food, it's just energy into energy through energy, it's just ignorant people that think "nom nom chocolate tastes nice" but chocolate doesn't taste like anything, it's just a receptor detecting a compound and sending a certain pleasurable signal to your brain because it's a high energy carbohydrate. And that's not to say derive no pleasure from chocolate, but understand it's a trick and appreciate it, like a magician watching another magician and seeing the slight of hand and art of the craft rather than the ignorant person in the crowd thinking "duhhh where'd the rabbit come from?". And when you see it as a trick vice foods have a lot less of a hold on you because you can just laugh at the absurdity of desiring something that's not real. And someone will hear that hindu dude doing that mantra and think he's cooky, but he gets it.
/rant :P
cam167 posted on November 12, 2011 at 23:31 PM
man, if you can convince poeople that chocolate doesn't taste like anything, and isn't real, but just energy into energy, through energy, you'd be the new atkins :D
great reply mitch thanx
nawhead posted on November 13, 2011 at 05:44 AM
cool book, reading it now.
and that rant was amazing. it made my head go through loops. :)
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