I was watching a YouTube video on how it is ok to be a loser. It is meant to illustrate Taoist ideas on ambition and destiny. I mean as far as ambition is concerned it is normally encouraged and a lack of ambition is seen as not being willing to meet your full potential. What does it mean to reach your full potential? What is success? If reaching your full potential is about success and the ambition to strive for it, could you also say it has become a necessity just to survive in a money driven world?

Is success being able to pay high rents and inflated prices? If these things aren’t a problem for you is it because you had ambition or you had it easy? Of course the details aren’t always within our scope of knowledge and we make a story to hopefully get people thinking. The issue with winning and losing is that there can never be too many winners. Taoism for example encourages self mastery, self control and a mind unswayed by social norms. The most famous Taoist in Chinese history would have to be Zhuge Liang.

He spent most of his life in mountainous seclusion and was sort out to hopefully unify China in the warring states period. He was an inventor of agricultural machines, weaponry, he led armies into battle, he was a strategist and even held state titles. With people like him there is even more of note but I won’t go into too much detail because he kind of did everything. Yet he pretty much came out of nowhere and his efforts are said to have brought him to an early death (age 56) but he was pivotal in Chinese history.

So even though he wasn’t ambitious or sorting out the positions he inevitably held destiny was his guide. He was far from a loser and you can understand that the YouTube video couldn’t recount the subtleties or every detail of Taoist history. It was more the way the Taoist would encourage non attachment and let destiny take its course rather than try to be in this or that position of power. The Taoist being in the mountains was supposed to be close to nature and the way of the Tao.

Through Taoist practices, they could map weather events or any number of phenomena. In the battle of Red Cliff Zhuge Liang knew the wind direction would change at a certain time and the smoke from a fire battle would disorient his enemies leading to his army’s victory. It was this knowledge that still exists today in the form of Chinese divination that is said was perfected by Zhuge Liang almost two thousand years ago. This knowledge is based on complex mathematics that is layered with other astrological information to create a snapshot of time and space.

Luckily you can get apps to do the most of the complex math for you but very few people still practice this ancient form. Other than the occult status of this practice it had practical applications in an agricultural society. Other than that strategy and tactics were practical necessities in battles and things were not easy in such chaotic times. Even though Zhuge Liang didn’t live to see the unification of China, it did happen and it wasn’t how anyone had planned. Once again it was destiny in play and Zhuge Liang did play an important role.

Of course nothing is as simple as it seems and in a way letting things take their course is not about doing nothing. It is more about doing what is natural to you. LaoZi for example never belittles intelligence or striving but encourages a natural approach. I remember my Qigong trainer would say when you are presented with two options there is always a third way. In that there is always something hidden and that could be the right option. Good and evil is a good example, the third option then could be a neutral position for example. It isn’t a Nietzsche thing but something unseen or unknown. Maybe nothingness.