# Trying Not to Try  ## Metadata - Author: [[Edward Slingerland]] - Full Title: Trying Not to Try - Category: #books ## Highlights - the best way to get a date seems to be to not want to get a date. The problem is that it’s hard to know what to do with this knowledge. How do you make yourself not want something that you actually do want? ([Location 196](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=196)) - Our excessive focus in the modern world on the power of conscious thought and the benefits of willpower and self-control causes us to overlook the pervasive importance of what might be called “body thinking”: tacit, fast, and semiautomatic behavior that flows from the unconscious with little or no conscious interference. ([Location 206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=206)) - “effortless action” ([Location 227](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=227)) - “charismatic power.” ([Location 230](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=230)) - It feels good to be in wu-wei because a whole slew of tasks simply can’t be performed by our plodding, conscious minds—we need to unleash the power of our fast, unconscious processes in order to get them done. ([Location 276](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=276)) - fact: spontaneous behavior is hard to fake, which means that spontaneous, unselfconscious people are unlikely to be fakers. ([Location 284](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=284)) - the human brain is designed primarily for guiding action, ([Location 310](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=310)) - One of the key features of the wu-wei state is a sense of being absorbed in some larger, valued whole—typically referred to as the Dao or “Way.” ([Location 345](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=345)) - wu-wei differs from modern psychological concepts such as “flow,” allowing us to recover the crucial social dimension of spontaneity. ([Location 348](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=348)) - spontaneity is, in fact, a cornerstone of individual well-being and human sociality. This means that the paradox of wu-wei is also more central than we realize, and the problem of overcoming it more urgent than we think. ([Location 386](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=386)) - We have been taught to believe that the best way to achieve our goals is to reason about them carefully and strive consciously to reach them. Unfortunately, in many areas of life this is terrible advice. Many desirable states—happiness, attractiveness, spontaneity—are best pursued indirectly, and conscious thought and effortful striving can actually interfere with their attainment. ([Location 387](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=387)) - All that I am doing is allowing the Heavenly within me to match up with the Heavenly in the world—this is probably why people mistake my art for the work of the spirits! ([Location 448](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=448)) - It’s striking how similar this story is to the lore surrounding a great public artist from an entirely different time and culture, Michelangelo. When questioned about his own apparently supernatural sculpting talents, he supposedly replied that, when given a commission, he simply waited until he found a piece of marble in which he could already see the sculpture. All he then had to do was cut away the stone that didn’t belong. ([Location 449](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=449)) - The Way of Heaven Excels in overcoming, though it does not contend; In responding, though it does not speak; In spontaneously attracting, though it does not summon; In planning for the future, though it is always relaxed. The Net of Heaven covers all; Although its mesh is wide, nothing ever slips through. ([Location 460](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=460)) - Excels in overcoming, though it does not contend; In responding, though it does not speak; In spontaneously attracting, though it does not summon; In planning for the future, though it is always relaxed. The Net of Heaven covers all; Although its mesh is wide, nothing ever slips through. ([Location 460](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=460)) - Someone or something else must be doing the work besides the conscious mind that we normally think of as “us.” ([Location 502](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=502)) - Tags: [[pink]] - While we are completely absorbed in chopping and sautéing, a complex dinner simply assembles itself before our eyes. ([Location 505](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=505)) - So another way to think about how the systems differ is that hot cognition is evolutionarily older and more rigid, while cold cognition is evolutionarily newer and more flexible—and therefore more likely to adapt to novel behavioral consequences. ([Location 544](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=544)) - We see a similar disjunction when it comes to different types of skills: unconscious “knowing how” seems distinct from conscious “knowing that.” ([Location 553](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=553)) - unconscious “knowing ([Location 553](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=553)) - how” seems distinct from conscious “knowing that.” ([Location 554](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=554)) - The goal of wu-wei is to get these two selves working together smoothly and effectively. ([Location 562](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=562)) - where his ability to perceive in a glance the tree that contains his bell stand is predicated on attaining a state of complete unselfconsciousness. More specifically, he needs to clear his mind of all external considerations, such as money, fame, honor, and a sense of his own physical self. ([Location 609](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=609)) - conflict. In the case of the Stroop task, we’ve got two automatic processes that are in conflict: ([Location 631](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=631)) - control. The ACC detects conflict, then calls in the lateral PFC to set things straight. And it is this combination of ACC and lateral PFC activation that appears to produce the subjective feeling of conscious, effortful activity. ([Location 661](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=661)) - correspond subjectively to the kind of relaxed but vigilant mode we enter into when we’re fully absorbed in a complex activity. ([Location 664](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=664)) - The same is true of any wu-wei activity, whether solitary or in a group. This aspect of wu-wei—its dependence on social interaction and shared values—is something that is generally overlooked by modern scientific treatments of spontaneity, and it’s a critical omission. The ([Location 682](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=682)) - Why does Zhuangzi celebrate the partial paralysis of our cognitive control regions? Because drunkenness induces something very much like a crude form of wu-wei: ([Location 702](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=702)) - what he cares about is the Way ([Location 716](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=716)) - life. This is because the story is really about social effectiveness: the ability to move through the human world with the same ease as Butcher Ding’s blade through the ox. ([Location 718](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=718)) - This kind of social efficacy, in turn, depends crucially upon the mysterious power of de, ([Location 725](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=725)) - So wu-wei and de are fundamentally linked to Heaven. Wu-wei works because to be wu-wei means that you are following the Heavenly Way, and anyone following the Way gains the power of de. This connection has important implications for understanding the kind of spontaneity that the early Chinese valued so highly. Spontaneity in the West is typically associated with individuality—people just doing whatever they want. Wu-wei, on the other hand, means becoming part of something larger: the cosmic order represented by the Way. Sages from Confucius at age seventy to the Daoists describe wu-wei as a state of “fitting” with the universe. Similarly, de is powerful because Heaven has made humans, animals, and even the natural world in such a way that they respond instantly and unquestioningly to virtue. The de-bearing sage can attract people, calm wild animals, and ensure good harvests and clement weather. By rewarding the wu-wei ruler with this power, Heaven ensures that its will is done. De is like a halo that surrounds someone in wu-wei and signals to everyone around: “Heaven likes me! You should too! I’m okay.” ([Location 746](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=746)) - It is this focus on caring—on getting beyond the self—that, in turn, allows us to connect wu-wei states characterized by high complexity and challenge to their infinitely more common relatives: very routine, thoroughly familiar, low-complexity activities that allow us to be fully absorbed in something that we love and value and that we see as being larger than our individual selves. ([Location 803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=803)) - It is the connection with a larger, valued whole that allows wu-wei or true flow experiences to leave us feeling “clean and happy,” ([Location 823](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=823)) - liberalism is about as stripped down as a value system can be and still function. Most of its injunctions are negative. Do not violate human rights, do not restrict people’s freedom of expression, do not allow the strong to oppress the weak. As long as you are careful to steer clear of committing genocide or being oppressively prejudiced, however, secular liberalism then doesn’t have a lot to say about what you should be doing. Besides vaguely sacred communal rituals such as listening to NPR, reading the New York Times, or buying locally sourced organic vegetables, secular liberals are not given much guidance on how to actually live their lives. And this vacuum has to be filled by something—avoiding human rights abuses still leaves a lot of hours in the day. This is why we tend to align ourselves with certain social tribes—Suburban Soccer Mom, Urban Hipster, Tortured Artist—that can live comfortably under the very large, but rather empty, umbrella of secular liberalism. ([Location 859](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=859)) - The only way to truly maximize pleasure, in the Greek hedonists’ view, was to stick to eternal, imperishable pleasures, like philosophical reflection, while keeping one’s involvement in the physical world to a bare minimum. ([Location 878](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=878)) - if you were to keep track of the activities that induce wu-wei in me or anyone else, you’d be able to piece together a rough outline of what sorts of things a person values or doesn’t. You’d also be able to tell whom they value, and whom they don’t, and this is perhaps of even greater importance. ([Location 900](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=900)) - Tags: [[pink]] - One of the great strengths of the early Chinese thinkers is that they did not merely describe states of effortless perfection but also focused on how to create these states, developing a variety of cultural practices, mental techniques, and physical exercises meant to nudge us into the right sort of spontaneity. As we’ll see, they tended to oscillate between trying strategies (work really hard, and eventually you’ll acquire wu-wei) and not trying strategies (just stop trying, and wu-wei will be there). We’ll begin with Confucius and his follower Xunzi, who developed the first and greatest of the trying strategies, and the one against which all subsequent strategies were formulated. ([Location 914](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=914)) - For individuals, they stressed the importance of exerting willpower, consciously reflecting on one’s behavior, and repressing hot cognition when appropriate—which, in the early stages of training, is almost always. ([Location 971](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=971)) - Note: Making progress towards the way is a lot like training for mastery the way Confucius did it - that hot cognition needs to be restrained and then extensively reshaped by cold processes before it can be trusted. ([Location 988](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=988)) - The creation of modern science is essentially a story of how, over a long period of time, humans have cobbled together novel methods of thinking and communicating that allow us to reach conclusions that completely ([Location 1025](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1025)) - contradict our intuitions—born of hot cognition—but give us a more accurate picture of how the world works. ([Location 1027](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1027)) - In China, a more common metaphor has been water control: an irrigation manager trying to channel water to where it is needed, or divert it in order to avoid flooding. ([Location 1067](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1067)) - cognitive control is a limited resource. ([Location 1084](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1084)) - It seems, then, that we have a fundamental problem to solve. Conscious control is crucial for civilized human life. You could never get large numbers of people to live and work together without employing it on a large scale. But this sort of control is physiologically expensive, fundamentally limited in nature, and easily disrupted. Cultural information rides for free in people’s memories and in the physical environment around us (marks on paper, tools), but our ability to actually use that information is constrained by the choke point of our limited-capacity consciousness. ([Location 1090](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1090)) - Tags: [[pink]] - When we talk about “muscle memory,” we should really say, “basal ganglia memory.” ([Location 1110](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1110)) - we are mostly unaware of the extent to which we rely on stories to help us know how to behave. ([Location 1181](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1181)) - privileging of ancient wisdom over individual brainpower ([Location 1206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1206)) - To begin with, unlike Confucius, Laozi thought that less, rather than more, culture was the answer. ([Location 1431](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1431)) - This work is part of what is now a huge literature on the often harmful effects of rumination and explicit analysis on people’s ability to experience and identify pleasure. ([Location 1463](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1463)) - negative effect that thinking and verbalizing have on our ability to simply experience life, ([Location 1465](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1465)) - There is no crime greater than indulging your desires; There is no disaster greater than not knowing contentment; There is no calamity more serious than wanting to get ahead. If you can know the contentment of contentment, you will be forever content. ([Location 1468](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1468)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “hedonic treadmill,” according to which positive or negative events result in only temporary increases in happiness or unhappiness. ([Location 1484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1484)) - The basic mechanism seems to be adaptation, a phenomenon well-known to perception researchers: after perceiving something for a certain period of time, your sensory system “adapts” to it, causing it to recede into the background. ([Location 1489](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1489)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Anything taken to its extreme turns into its opposite, an idea captured at one point in the text by the image of an ancient and famous “tilting vessel” said to have been designed so that it stood upright when empty but tipped and spilled out its contents when filled: ([Location 1516](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1516)) - all striving leads to disappointment in the end because there is no permanence in the world. The cycle of yin-yang is not to be celebrated but escaped. ([Location 1528](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1528)) - The very act of trying to be good fatally contaminates the goal. As he says, “The worst kind of Virtue never stops striving for Virtue, and so never achieves Virtue.” ([Location 1563](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1563)) - a large body of evidence suggesting that we get depressed when we’re consciously trying to be happy, anxious when we are trying to relax, and distracted when we’re trying to concentrate. ([Location 1568](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1568)) - “paradoxical intention” therapy. Focusing on the specific problems of insomniacs, for instance, Frankl noted that “sleep [is like] a dove which has landed near one’s hand and stays there as long as one does not pay any attention to it; if one attempts to grab it, it quickly flies away.” His recommended strategy, therefore, was to advise insomniacs to try to stay awake ([Location 1578](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1578)) - Thinking that you are good can make you bad. Talking about positive behavior can ([Location 1594](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1594)) - encourage negative behavior. ([Location 1594](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1594)) - “transient hypofrontality,” the downregulation of the cognitive control regions in the prefrontal cortex that occurs during intense physical exercise. ([Location 1648](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1648)) - According to Mencius, we are, at some level, already wu-wei. We just need to realize it and thereby become capable of nourishing the wu-wei tendencies within us. ([Location 1785](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1785)) - “pulling on the sprouts to help them grow,” ([Location 1796](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1796)) - Mohist moral “training,” to the extent we can use that word, was a matter of learning one simple principle: how to calculate the consequences of any given act and then determine if those consequences would, overall, increase three things: the wealth, population, and order of the state. ([Location 1825](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1825)) - These sprouts of compassion and moral correctness are rounded out by the “feeling of deference” (the sprout of ritual propriety) and the “feeling of right and wrong” (the sprout of wisdom). ([Location 1872](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1872)) - that moral judgments are driven by emotions to a much greater extent than we tend to realize. A group of young, psychologically ([Location 1907](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1907)) - “rational tail” wagged by the “emotional dog.” ([Location 1912](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1912)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “somatic markers”—the unconscious assignments of emotional value that ordinarily accompany our representations of the world. ([Location 1920](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1920)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The conscious mind, ungrounded by the wisdom of the body, is remarkably incapable of taking care of business. ([Location 1932](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=1932)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Mencian wu-wei cultivation is about feeling and imagination, not abstract reason or rational arguments, and he gets a lot of support on this from contemporary science. ([Location 2018](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2018)) - Tags: [[pink]] - that human thought is grounded in, and structured by, our sensorimotor experience of the world. In other words, we think in images. ([Location 2020](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2020)) - experimental evidence suggesting that the way that people actually think looks imagistic rather than abstract. We think of our lives as journeys, reason about fairness by drawing upon physical balance, and viscerally experience evil as darkness or pollution, good as light and purity. ([Location 2043](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2043)) - We think in images, which means that both learning and teaching depend fundamentally on the power of our imagination. ([Location 2053](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2053)) - Like a farmer patiently tending a plant, or a flood-control engineer attempting to channel the mighty Yellow River, cultivation works only when it is in harmony with the natural tendencies of things. ([Location 2066](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2066)) - One might then reasonably conclude that the real secret to wu-wei might be found among the weeds of humanity who live and flourish ([Location 2185](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2185)) - The key is not to focus and cultivate but to let the world take you where it will. ([Location 2186](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2186)) - Psychologists refer to this as “categorical inflexibility,” a tendency for socially learned representations of objects to constrain our ability to think about them in novel or creative ways. ([Location 2211](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2211)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The key, in his view, was to not condemn others or to pride yourself on being right but rather to get beyond right and wrong altogether: “If you’re committed to something being ‘right,’ you’re equally committed to something else being ‘wrong’; condemning something as ‘wrong’ means valuing something else as ‘right.’ ([Location 2252](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2252)) - What does Huizi need to do to be less cramped by social norms, to respond to the world as it is, not as he thinks it should be? He needs to forget and let go. How does he do that? He needs to escape the domination of the conscious mind. ([Location 2269](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2269)) - listen with your qi. The ears only record sounds, the mind can only analyze and categorize, but the qi is empty and receptive. If you make yourself empty, nothing less than the Way itself will appear to you. This emptiness is what I mean by the fasting of the mind.” ([Location 2284](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2284)) - By emptying himself of himself, as it were, he creates a receptive space, an openness to hearing what the ruler actually has to say and what the situation actually demands. ([Location 2307](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2307)) - Take “divergent” creativity, which refers to the ability to imagine multiple solutions to a problem, or novel uses for an object. A common way to measure it experimentally is the Unusual Uses Test (UUT), where subjects are given a common object and asked to come up with as many different possible uses as they can imagine within a given time frame. ([Location 2315](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2315)) - “If you’re betting for broken bits of potsherd you can shoot with perfect skill—there is nothing at stake. If you start betting for belt buckles, you become worried about your aim. By the time you start betting for gold, you’re completely petrified. Your actual skill is the same in all three cases, but because of the relative value you place on these objects, you end up paying more attention to extraneous things. It is always the case that those who focus on the outside become clumsy on the inside.” ([Location 2346](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2346)) - Zhuangzi shares with our other thinkers a conviction that wu-wei leads to de, although the power of Zhuangzian de lies not so much in attracting others as in relaxing them. ([Location 2448](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2448)) - gourd containing food would be staked to the center of a clearing. The opening was designed to be large enough to allow a monkey to reach his hand in but too small for him to withdraw a fistful of food. The story has it that, having allowed the monkey a chance to reach in and grab the food, the tribesmen would then rush out of the bushes to capture him. All the monkey needed to do to escape was let go of the food and run, but—unable to recalibrate his evaluations in light of changing circumstances—he would remain there, panicked and desperate to flee, but with his tightly gripped fistful of food keeping him bound to the gourd. ([Location 2481](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2481)) - This Zhuangzian wu-wei is a state of perfect equanimity, flexibility, and responsiveness. ([Location 2502](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2502)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Early Chinese theology aside, this idea that we need to completely eliminate cold cognition in order to be wu-wei seems similarly puzzling. ([Location 2591](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2591)) - In ancient Greece we find the so-called “Meno problem” in the works of Plato: in order to be taught something, the student needs to recognize it as something worthy of learning. ([Location 2681](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2681)) - Tags: [[pink]] - De, translated by Nivison as “virtue,” seems in these Shang texts to be a somewhat more narrow concept than the one we are working with in the Warring States texts. It refers to a kind of psychic energy that causes other beings—both natural and supernatural—to feel a debt to the possessor, someone like the Shang king, and a consequent desire to obey or help. ([Location 2737](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2737)) - The dominant position in the West has been that the transition was made possible because of new institutions. According to this model, our hot cognition has not changed at all since we were running around on the African savanna. We are still old-fashioned tribal primates at heart. What has changed is the invention of external social institutions—laws and punishments, money, bureaucracies—that allow our tribal instincts to be redirected or repressed. Living in a large-scale society is like performing a perpetual Stroop task: our cognitive control centers are constantly having to override our hot cognition in order to keep us from otherwise natural behavior that, in the civilized world, would get us ostracized or arrested. Civilization is about the triumph of cold cognition over hot. Freud and Mozi would agree. ([Location 2761](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2761)) - According to this view, the key to getting lots of strangers to work together is not to create an endless stream of new laws or institutions but to create a set of shared values. Laws are something you merely obey. Values are something you feel. Once internalized, values function just like other forms of hot cognition—fast, automatic, unconscious, wu-wei. Looked at this way, we can begin to see how the paradox of wu-wei emerges as a kind of natural consequence of our transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers and city dwellers. ([Location 2774](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2774)) - irrationality is the only way to get cooperation off the ground in these situations and that the precise sort of irrationality we need is provided by human emotions like love, gratitude, indignation, envy, anger, honor, or loyalty. ([Location 2785](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2785)) - Frank’s insight was that even very basic social interactions cannot work unless there are powerful emotions lurking in the background, keeping everyone honest. ([Location 2795](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2795)) - The conscious pursuit of self-interest is actually incompatible with its attainment. ([Location 2802](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2802)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Political relationships, on the other hand, are problematic because they are not by nature wu-wei—the innate hot cognition of a minister does not incline him to trust or obey or love his political superior—but they need to be wu-wei in order to work properly. ([Location 2818](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2818)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The situation that has come to prevail in large-scale human societies around the world is one in which cooperation is quite prevalent but some defectors can survive because the cost of perfect cheater detection is too high. Pervasive suspicion is as paralyzing as blind trust is open to abuse. ([Location 2841](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2841)) - A good candidate for such cultural signaling is the widespread practice of bodily alteration or scarification. ([Location 2861](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2861)) - Another somewhat obvious and hard-to-fake sign of group membership is accent. ([Location 2869](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2869)) - The word shibboleth in English now refers to an arbitrary sign of being part of an in-group, but that’s not at all its original meaning: the reason the biblical shibboleth worked was that it was anything but arbitrary. All groups use their own versions of the shibboleth in situations where defining membership is crucial. ([Location 2878](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2878)) - Therefore, although some theorists of religion use the terminology of “signaling” to refer to all group-marking behaviors, ([Location 2891](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2891)) - The reason that urging your photographic subject to “say cheese” sometimes works is because the request is so absurd that it results in genuine amusement, which then causes a small, sincere smile to appear. Emotional reactions serve as reliable signals precisely because they are not typically under conscious control. ([Location 2910](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2910)) - researchers found that police officers could significantly improve their ability to detect false statements if suspects were asked to give their alibis in reverse order, starting with the most recent event and working their way back. This is not the way we normally tell stories, so being forced to do it increases cognitive load. Dishonest suspects, it turns out, are less effective liars if you handicap their conscious minds in this way. ([Location 2938](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2938)) - much more low-tech and socially acceptable way to produce the same effect is to get someone completely wasted. ([Location 2948](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=2948)) - “You cannot try, but you also cannot not try; trying is wrong, but not trying is also wrong.” ([Location 3100](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3100)) - The paradox of wu-wei arises out of problems surrounding human cooperation and trust, and its paradoxical nature is not accidental but rather a design feature. ([Location 3102](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3102)) - There is good evidence that, when it comes to skill acquisition, conscious attention to technique and explicit feedback is actually very helpful. It’s only when you reach the expert stage that cold cognition begins to disrupt your performance. ([Location 3135](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3135)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Familiarity breeds love, not contempt. ([Location 3171](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3171)) - Laozi at one point advises the ruler, “Governing a large state is like cooking a small fish”—in other words, you don’t want to overdo it. ([Location 3197](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3197)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “The highest Virtue does not try to be virtuous, and so really possesses Virtue”; ([Location 3215](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3215)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Happiness is as a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” ([Location 3252](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3252)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “paradox of introspection,” ([Location 3257](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3257)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Revealingly, the negative effects of introspection disappear once one reaches a certain level of expertise: intellectual analysis and a rich descriptive vocabulary eventually become assets for both jam experts and wine professionals. ([Location 3260](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3260)) - Related work by the psychologist Robert Emmons and colleagues suggests that keeping a gratitude journal—which forces one to reflect upon the positive aspects of one’s life—improves physical and mental health and leads to increased compassion for others. ([Location 3304](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3304)) - Similarly, regardless of level of expertise, focusing on the environment and effects one wishes to have upon it (“external focus”) is more effective than focusing on one’s own bodily movements or internal states (“internal focus”). For instance, swimmers told to focus on pushing the water back (external focus) as opposed to pulling their hands backwards (internal focus) swim faster, and this effect has been shown in a large variety of domains. ([Location 3309](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3309)) - Tags: [[pink]] - When you focus on your own movements, you allow your conscious mind to insert itself where it doesn’t belong, disrupting smooth, automatic motor programs and allowing other distractions—social pressure, personal anxieties, promised material rewards—to invade and degrade your performance. Focusing on the skill-relevant environment facilitates your ability to get “lost” in the to-and-fro of the play. ([Location 3313](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3313)) - Actually caring about the conversation instead of reflecting on whether you can contribute to it or consciously monitoring how people are reacting to you is what’s really important. ([Location 3328](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3328)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Scientists have, in recent decades, begun moving away from abstract models of human cognition toward more embodied ones. They’re coming to recognize that the sort of knowledge that we rely on most heavily is hot, emotionally grounded “knowing how” rather than cold, dispassionate “knowing that.” ([Location 3338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3338)) - We’re made for doing, not thinking. ([Location 3340](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3340)) - Tags: [[pink]] - the qualities that have been attributed to flow depend less on complexity and challenge than on absorption in a valued whole. ([Location 3355](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3355)) - it’s only this kind of value-grounded spontaneity that gives rise to de, ([Location 3358](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3358)) - If we can manage to not push too hard when trying is bad, and not think too much when reflection is the enemy, the flow of life is always there, eager to pull us along in its wake. ([Location 3382](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3382)) - The embodied view of cognition. On the imagistic nature of thought, see Kosslyn, Thompson, and Ganis (2006); on emotions and reason, see Damasio (1994) and Berthoz (2006); on the action-oriented nature of thought, see Gibson (1979) and Noë (2004). ([Location 3570](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3570)) - “Thinking without thinking.” Gladwell (2005). Also see Ap Dijksterhuis et al.’s work on “deliberation without attention” (Dijksterhuis et al. 2006), as well as a helpful recent review by Bargh and colleagues of automaticity in social cognition (Bargh et al. 2012). ([Location 3692](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00F1W0R1O&location=3692))