Hey everyone
Here is a question.
Can you imagine Bukowski meditating in some distant mountains in China?
Or practicing Tai-chi?
We know Bukowski from his drinking.
Bar brawling.
His anti-social personality.
But also his brutal honesty.
And writing beautiful poetry.
And saying he didn't give a shit what people thought of him.
Marxists might characterise him as lumpenproletariat, a lower class man who is not organised, not
political and has no interest in changing himself or the world.
In other words a loser who drinks to fight and then drinks some more to heal his wounds
so that he can fights again to heal his existential wounds.
Violence and alcohol are as far from Taoism.
But Bukowski was an artist.
Wordsmith.
That’s why he was a lot closer to Taoism than many other philosophies.
How?
Taoism started as a religion in China some 2500 years ago.
Confucianism at the time emphasised order and hierarchy, so Taoism instead of strict
disciplinarianism and rigid hierarchical way of life focused on being at east with nature
and people.
In other words, a chilled way of living.
It has a deep root in shamanism, a way of connecting with a deeper inner spirit and
nature through tai-chi martial art.
Shamans believed there was a deeper underlying spirit that connected all humans no matter
in what period in history they lived.
Even today in countries like Mongolia Shaman priests drink a large amount of alcohol to
go on a spirit quest to talk to their ancestors from hundreds to thousand years before.
Taoism, perhaps an offshoot of shamanaism, emphasises the flow of life, immortality and
balance with nature.
By immortality I mean the immortality of spirits.
Taoism embraces the two opposing forces within us, ying-yan or dark and light forces which
we might say good and evil, violence and peace, demons and angels are inside each and every
one of us.
Wu-Wei is a Taoist doctrine which means a state of not being, or not doing or inaction.
For example practicing tai-chi, you get to a state that your body becomes one with your
surroundings and nature.
Movement no longer feel like effort or strain on your body.
Or as Bukowski might say, don't try.
It’s written on his tombstone.
Don't try.
Don't go to extremes.
Don’t uses excessive force.
Now how is Bukowski a Taoist?
Let’s be clear he wasn't religious and he said so himself.
I take his words.
Taoism is a religion but also a philosophy.
Bukowski never said he didn't follow any philosophies.
As humans no matter how secular or atheist you’re you can’t live life without adhering
to some basic principles for meaning or as an anchor for your existence.
Here is what is interesting.
A real connection between Bukowski and Taoism.
It’s the state of wu-wei, or action through inaction.
Or sometimes called a flow.
Bukowski was so goddamn good writer that he didn't have to try to write.
In other words, he didn't have to strain to produce good crap, I mean good poem anymore.
That’s why he says don’t try.
He was writing with ease because he had reached a state in which wu-wei or flow was his friend.
He was one with his words.
He was the same as his writing.
He was writing without effort.
He was his art and his art was him.
Action without strain.
Action with in-action.
Now granted, he didn't have it as a young man.
He spent years getting to a stage where he didn't have to try.
He got there by practicing for years.
But when he found his flow, he just crapped and it was good crap.
It takes a lot of crapping to be able to just do it.
Babies shit themselves for years before they can use the toilet.
Now what he wrote wasn't beautiful to everyone.
Not everyone liked what he wrote.
But then that’s what Taoism teaches us.
Here is a quote attributed to Lao Tsu, the man who wrote the main book of Taoism, Tao
Te Ching.
He says: "The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth."
― Lao Tzu.
I think Bukowski has the same philosophy.
He never tried to hide the ugly.
He mostly wrote about the ugly.
That’s what great artists do.
They write and sometimes their writings stick.
Other times they don't.
But he continued writing what was truthful.
What was less bullshit.
He wrote how he felt.
He wrote how he saw.
He lived a crappy life for a long time, before he was successful.
Sometimes, you have to walk through a pile of turd to find something good.
Truth is not always in some library.
Or some secret government department.
Or some distant mountains.
Truths can be found among alcoholics.
Among the lumpenproletariat.
In the most ordinary places.
Bukowski used alcohol to numb the pain of existence but it also allowed him to live
outside the modern existence for a bit.
Just like Shaman priests who get drunk to be able to travel to the past in quest for
truth, Bukowski consumed a lot of alcohol.
It was not just alcohol, it was also his decision not to play the capitalist game that allowed
to find a deeper meaning in life.
A deeper truth.
He reached a state, which Taoism was teaching 2500 years ago.
A state of being one with your existence.
Our social history and culture turn us into a fish inside a shoal in which we synchronise
our existence for the most part.
Being an individual means being alone, or in the cold.
But being part of a cultural shoal, we grow smelling the same fart of those came before
us, centuries before us.
Bukowski farted a new way.
Somewhat his own way.
We are creatures of our cultures, like a thick juice we swim in that we can't see anything
beyond.
Bukowski didn’t join this culture as vigorously as most of us do.
He stood away.
He didn't play the game capitalism has set for us all.
To run like mad.
To get rich like mad.
To consume like mad.
Bukowski was an artist.
He listened to his own feelings.
You might say that is the way of the Dao.
Nobody has monopoly on truth.
We get there in our own ways.
So when Bukowski says don't try.
It means find your flow and let that flow take you where it may take you.
Listen to your inner voice.
That’s freedom from the grind.
Malcolm Gladwell concluded that 10,000 hours is needed to master an art, craft or a sport.
Artists, craftspeople, and athletes spend that amount of time practicing.
Bukowski spent decades writing and writing and writing.
Only at the age of 49, he was given the chance to write full time.
He was a paid author.
Great writers write millions of crappy words before they can find their flow or groove.
Bukowski used isolation technique.
Solitude was as important to him as alcohol and his writing.
He avoided people.
But he also used alcohol.
In France, a century ago, many great artists used the green fairy, absinthe to create great
art.
Coleridge, the great English poet, used heroin to compose his most famous poem the lyrical
balads.
Okay, I should stop here before you get some bad ideas from this video.
The point of the video was to show that humans no matter where you’re born or grow up,
you stay inside a local blanket unless you accept the cold and the discomfort of being
outside that warm and fuzzy blanket we call the culture and history.
People like Bukowski chose the discomfort to find the dao or flow.
So the real message of Bukowski is try and try until you find your flow where you don't
need to try anymore.
So humans are born individuals but society brings us to line and punishes us if we stray.
The French philosopher, Jean-Jacque Rousseau said that we are born free but everywhere
in chain.
He meant society is our chain.
Society gives us security and comfort but takes away our individuality.
Our freedom.
We all want to be free.
how do you find freedom?
Bukowski found it in his writing.
In fiction.
In poetry.
He says: “Find what you love and let it kill you.”
You might be surprised to think that Bukowski was the best humanist out there.
He says: “We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus ! That alone should make
us love each other but it doesn't.”
So the bottom line is whatever you do, do it in a way that makes you tick.
Your true feelings come out.
Truer self.
I don't think there is a true self as an absolute.
But partially true selves that flow inside you are there.
You just need to look for it.
You can only find in doing something.
It’s through the doing that we find the meaning for your life.
the happiness or contentment or purpose.
Be it writing.
Or reading.
Or making videos.
Or cutting trees.
working in an office.
Whatever you do, some days are easy.
Some days are hard.
Some days are terrible.
And some days are wonderful.
And on those days, rare they might be, we don't try.
Those days flow.
Those are good days.
Thank you!