One of the core ideas I promote is that it is better to replace our natural judgemental attitude (assigning values, categories, and making comparisons) with a mindset that is wholly focused on step-by-step improvement, without any judgement.
This simple idea is, as it turns out, very unusual and rare in human history. Let’s see why, and let’s discuss some of the few cultures or philosophies which challenged our natural tendency for judgement.
As many others practitioners, there is one thing I find particularly meaningful and valuable in martial arts training, aside from the obvious positive effects of physical exercise or the engagement of a sport activity. I am referring to the very specific focus of sport, but martial arts in particular, on improvement and a mentality that promotes growth and self-overcoming.
The path of a martial artist is an everlasting journey towards a progressive mastery of the body and the mind. There is, interestingly, no end to the practice. Ideally, there should never be a point when you just stop training, because you reached the «final step», because you are too good to improve, or because you are already the best anyway. There is always room for improvement, and it is the martial artists job to seek it over and over. If we think about it, this is actually rather peculiar in our culture (and any other I know of). Most of the time, we do all but think in that way. Mostly, we have a natural tendency towards a static maintenance of the status quo, rather than an active pursue of improvement.
Even the idea of progress itself is a rather modern cultural construct, which was virtually non-existent in most human cultures until a few centuries ago. Although for us it is a rather obvious perspective, coming from our look at a (recent) history of constantly new technological achievements, that was not the way most of our ancestors thought. If anything, the most common perspectives on time in traditional societies were either a cyclical one (things repeat themselves in an eternal cycle, or perhaps alternating cycles of decadence and growth), or «fall from grace» narrative. Our ancestors didn’t see themselves as a force of progress and their time as a story of ever improving life conditions. More often, they looked at the past as a Golden Age, a glorious era when their ancestors directly spoke to the Gods or witnessed first-hand the deeds of the great mythological heroes. In fact, even the perhaps greatest cultural influence on our history, the Bible, basically portrays human history as beginning with a fall from Heaven.
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Although these traditional perspectives are obviously far from our own, and although we do not obviously share this admiration for «the elders» nor wish our societies resembled that of decades ago, I would argue that this force for a static maintenance of the current situation is still utterly strong. As a culture, we keep seeing as treats any attempt to change the status quo, pretty much regardless of what that change could be. Of course, I witness that first-hand regularly, as I am entirely committed to a thorough critique of our society and I both wish and try to promote deep changes. It is clearly stated in this series and the rest of my work. Some of the things I teach and promote are radically in contrast with many assumptions we usually make, even about some fundamental issues. Be assured I face a lot of hostility. Sure, that may simply be because my ideas aren’t good. However, most of the time, hostility comes from people who never took the time to even figure out what my opinions are in the first place. I’ll be back on this topic in the next book, and describe some historical examples of minority perspectives being forcefully fought back, even when harmless.
As a species, we seem to strive for permanence and repetition. We feel threatened and worried when something is about to change, and a mentality which promotes doing things differently sounds scary and troublesome. There are a lot of mental defences which give us not only the illusory perspective we don’t need to change, but that it would be a terrible mistake to even contemplate it (some of which, what I called the «Bad Advisors», will be discussed in the next book). In the end, even in a society born upon the idea of (mostly technological) progress, and the one in history which is capable of witnessing the fastest progress ever, we still have a natural tendency towards maintaining things exactly how they are… crucially, even when they aren’t so good. Of course, there are numerous world views which encourage the opposite, nor am I claiming to be innovative in this sense. Martial arts are, indeed, a clear example of this mentality, and perhaps the one which infiltrated the most our contemporary Western society, thus making this self-overcoming ideal of growth the most accessible to us.
But there are many other examples, coming from both religious and intellectual history. Buddhism would be the clearest case of the first. There is, in particular, a famous koan ( In Zen practice, a koan is a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used to provoke «great doubt» and test a student’s progress). It states «if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him». Without too much digressions, the meaning is more or less this: the Buddha is a symbol for enlightenment, and if we, in our own inner journey find a Buddha on the road – someone, or some philosophy, or practice, or dogma which we see as the ultimate achievement –, we must not make the mistake of following that road. We must keep practising instead of clinging to any final state in our mind, no matter how appealing.
As for examples in the intellectual traditions, of course it would be Nietzsche, one of the so called «masters of suspicion», radical thinkers who questioned the most fundamental assumptions of their (and our) culture. One of his central doctrines is the «will to power», which he sees as the main hidden driving force in humans, a concept that is sometimes vague (he never gave a systematic definition, and died before his notes about this issue could be turned into a finished work), but is clearly related to an on-going process which overcomes itself. He writes about it: «And this secret spake Life herself unto me. “Behold,” said she, “I am that WHICH MUST EVER SURPASS ITSELF.» And later «Verily, I say unto you: good and evil which would be everlasting—it doth not exist! Of its own accord must it ever surpass itself anew. With your values and formulae of good and evil, ye exercise power, ye valuing ones: and that is your secret love, and the sparkling, trembling, and overflowing of your souls. But a stronger power groweth out of your values, and a new surpassing: by it breaketh egg and egg-shell. And he who hath to be a creator in good and evil—verily, he hath first to be a destroyer, and break values in pieces.»
Both the Buddha and Nietzsche focus on the crucial idea of impermanence: acknowledging that nothing is ultimate or everlasting, and promote, although in different ways, a similar perspective of a meaningful life as a process, as a journey, rather than as something stationary with a precise and finite end point or ultimate status. Both had a similar rejection of ultimate endpoints and absolute judgements. For the Buddha, human suffering is caused by clinging to the illusions of our minds, becoming attached to it (which may refer to material possessions, but may be extended to one’s status, judgements, opinions, and so on, and even the whole idea there is a «self»). In Nietzsche’s work there are two recurring phrases which reflect this, about going «beyond good and evil» and beginning a «transvalutation of all values», which refer to being open to forego current standards, re-evaluate anything, no matter how seemingly absolute, in a self-surpassing process which progressively creates new values.
Self-overcoming mindset today
In the end, however, these kind of proactive views on one’s own life and achievements has remained largely a minority perspective. Most religion are in a striking opposition with the Buddha’s humble acceptance of ignorance upon ultimate matters and impermanence. In fact, Buddhism is so strikingly original on many accounts that some aren’t even sure whether or not to define it as a religion. Most of religious history is filled instead with certainties and «absolute truths», some of which were to be defended even at the cost of mass murder. There is often very small room for doubt and questioning (something the Buddha encouraged his disciples to do, even when it contrasted his own teachings). Terms like «Last Judgement», which leave little room to plurality and difference, are commonplace. Nietzsche’s philosophy remains to this day a rare, if not unique, work in intellectual history, whereas most thinkers preferred a more traditional and systematic approach to their work, in which they outline theories or perspectives, and then defend them or try to justify them.
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