Virtuosity

Virtuosity.  It is the real object of any introspection.  We seek grace, comprehension and effect.

Effect and virtuosity are here taken to mean the same thing.  We want to be effective, and to have an effect, a direct operative effect on our world.  As Paganini was a virtuoso of the violin—he had great effect with his instrument—so would we like to be virtuosos of our lives.  To Laozi the virtuoso of life was the sage.  Just as “virtue” has taken on too lofty of connotations for us to use in place of “effect”, so has the word “sage”, so we will use “virtuoso”, or simply “a person with great effect”.

What are some ways we can effect our virtuosity?  Let's recap our understanding of the origin of things:

1. The unidentified mysterious whole is that in which things are part and which is, of course, unknown to any things part of it.


2. Through distinctions, that is naming or identification, multiplicity and the character of our lives is born.  The simplest of these distinctions, “Not”, or “that which is not ___”, is present in every distinction.  So it is with simple comprehension that a whole is shown to be divided.


3. It would appear much of the substance of our lives is entirely of our own conceptual creation, though there is some mysterious source from which we emerge and, while not perfectly knowable, is evidenced by those distinctions we can't simply conceptualize away like desire for rest, nourishment and love.


4. It is our thesis that contradiction itself is the essence of distinction.  Distinction demonstrates the separateness of some thing that presumably is not separate, hence the need for demonstration.  Some might say that in this sense the distinction isn't contradictory, but the thesis is that in fact contradiction itself is not contradictory.

So the advice in attaining virtuosity as provided in Conflict was to look for contradiction in our own sense of conflict.  This isn't that new an idea.  Often it's simply that the grass is greener exactly because it's on the other side of the fence.  But more helpfully, this understanding of things will help us understand when and why the grass really is greener.  For example the grass on this side is occupied by ourselves and getting used and worn.  As soon as we change sides it is going to grow green and the other side will wear.  Now, in any given analogous example of conflict it may be that we, once recognizing the source of the conflict, can actually find a happy solution resulting in green grass, but if not, at least with understanding we will feel the conflict to an appropriate degree.  Unnecessary degrees of stress will not accompany our conflict anymore.  Every improvement helps our virtuosity, as every championship athlete knows, anger hampers performance.

It is important to note here that we are really talking about the most unyielding problems in our lives, and those which we can address through our understanding.  There is of course a degree of more traditional virtuosity a person can obtain to remove some conflict from his or her life—say by learning better grass caretaking techniques!  But we assume those alternatives have been exhausted before the approaches outlined here are attempted.

Resolving conflict is great.  But, while one might be tempted to think all enhancements to our effectiveness might be phrased in terms of resolution of conflict—finding solutions implies the resolution of problems, one might assume—but to all things correspond those things which they are not, and therefore, not all things are aspects of conflict.  How can we become stronger, better, faster in ways other than resolving conflict?

Simplification.

It is one thing to juggle a problem and hate doing it, it's another to suddenly realize one was contentedly, unwittingly juggling an unnecessary problem and to suddenly find the freedom of not having to.  By simplifying our lives we free ourselves to focus and be more effective in what remains.  As we look back at our four points we see immediately where the most basic and effective means of simplification is going to come from: erasing of distinction.  Going backward from a separated multiplicity to the whole source.

An obvious example of simplification is recognizing when you are digesting irrelevant information.  The information is just more distinction of a whole whose parts are never going to have any impact on what you are using it for.  When you ask for directions and the person you ask fills you in on the history of the landmarks along the way, you may be inclined to politely nod in interest, but you will do yourself a favor if, as the directions become complicated, you focus less on remembering the history and more on the the landmarks.  This is hardly a surprising piece of advice.  What is interesting is that this very commonsense idea is an example of the traditionally “lofty” goal of becoming one with the universe and leaving duality behind.

A more useful example brings us back to the topic of conflict.  Not our own this time, rather the conflict of others.  Given our new proportion in handling conflict by design—that is conflict we create by our own definitions—we are now in a position to filter out irrelevancies in the machinations of those around us.  Where another person is caught up in the details of a conflict that is completely unavoidable, and therefore hardly worth protest from our point of view, we can step back an only invest as much excitement in the situation as is necessary, even while we may not be able to convince our friend of the same possibility.  And if we can help our friend out, we may just simplify our own lives even more.

A profound example of simplification is recognizing that distinction always includes the essence of “Not” or “Complement” and that an object and its complement are identical in all ways except their opposition to each other.  Sound tautological?  Perhaps paradoxical?  Let's look at this in a couple other ways.

Certainly one has to agree a thing and its opposite are equal in complexity.  That they have a predictable relationship.  When we look at the complex of reality sprawling out before us, we can be aided in recognizing where the contours in definition lie.  Where two phenomena are simply the opposing implications of a distinction in a larger whole.  So with the protection of a locked door comes the possibility of being locked out.  So with the existence of wealth comes the existence of poverty.  So with the existence of good comes bad.  So with every move of some object from one position of one advantage to another with a different advantage comes a change in the the disadvantages of the that same object.  When seen as simplification, duality takes the form of a conservation principle, similar to, and perhaps a generalization of, the principle of the conservation of energy.  A certain calm can be afforded an individual who, though still accountable for strategic and tactical details, knows not so much has changed on the playing field of life as may at first appear on each passing event.

Perhaps most profound of all in the simplification of understanding accorded by duality the conservation principle, is that the world is what we are not.  You are you and the rest is what you are not.  That means the world is no more and no less complicated than you.  The world has a predictable relationship to you.  This most drastic of realizations might seem to afford the most drastic sources of virtuosity.

Perhaps.  But then with every change in our lives, including our effect, comes the complementary implications of that change, perhaps preventing as much from changing as one might expect.  But in some sense, you already are the ultimate virtuoso, since reality is defined in exact corresponding response to you.

tags: correspondence  distinction  virtuosity  inexhaustibility