What is your true self? If I think of that question in what I know of Taoism, it is ideally being empty. The emptiness is not about value but being open. Being open is a physical necessity and the emptiness allows energy in and out as needed. This physical state allows the mind to mirror the body, they work as one.

Some people say your true self is what you do or want to do. That the world around you limits your true self. That you have to overcome the world to become who you really are. Say you have a dream job for example, your day job is supposed to limit your goal of this dream job.

I don’t find this concept particularly convincing because you should be able to do anything you need to do and still be capable of reaching an open empty mind. The way to do that is through some kind of effort that isn’t a struggle. People think non-action is literally doing nothing. It is more like doing enough but not overdoing it.

It isn’t just balance because people think that is a good and bad scale that you tip either way. Balance is more like harmony than a set of scales. Being who you really are is mostly accepting yourself rather than just building yourself. If you accept your true nature, allow emptiness and open channels within you can be your true self in any situation you find yourself in.

If you believe it is an external goal you are in a material mindset and you simply delay your self responsibility and won’t open yourself to the non material reality that is within. This may sound like navel gazing but freeing yourself from material desires will not only improve your life and wellbeing but is the only real answer to all of the manifestations of desire.

At the same time the real question is, who am I to claim these lofty ideals when I work a day job and have an unsuccessful art career. The answer is I find solace and contentment in the physical practice of Qigong. You might be like, who cares, yet if anything I am not adding to the problem of suffering, coveting material goods and trying to climb over people so I think I am getting ahead.

It may sound like I am devaluing people by talking of emptiness and being physically open but in fact it is the opposite. I want people to know their true power. Yet even though you are born with it you still need to cultivate it. At the same time it is unrealistic to think people will find their true self. Or if they are out for it, it is tied into a material mindset that prolongs suffering.

The body of Christ for example shows the mindset of suffering for what you believe in, (the connection of Earth and Heaven) and the punishment to expect if you do go against the system in power. Yet the way people have a disease or ailment and people say stuff like, ‘you gotta fight it’, ‘don’t give up the good fight’, ‘he/she was a fighter’ shows the cultural obsession with suffering.

Rather than finding a way that doesn’t require suffering or aggression (gym junkies for example, UFC or whatever) you find harmony instead. Yet people think that harmony is soft, vague, feminine or a bunch of white Anglo Saxon women with candles in a new age retreat or on yoga mats when it has nothing to do with that at all.

The alternatives are laughable and they are designed to be so. Yet that isn’t the real alternative. It is simply about being your true self. That also takes effort and work and a bunch of scented candles will not suffice. I suppose rejecting the idea that my true self lies in achieving material goals lets people and myself be who they are right now and attend to their bodies in a sustainable way. That is Qigong.