Processes and step by step guides are for people who can live without what they’re seeking. If you look hard enough, you’ll recognise they’re addicted to the methodology rather than arrival.
Humanity’s relative comfort level has given way to a ‘methodology’ based marketplace – ‘how to’s’, ‘3 step programs’ etc. The reason this happens is that men are trivial about their pursuits. They’re not serious about themselves or life. This has made way for an instruction overload and a ‘fix me’ attitude to relationships.
The coach and the coached, the therapist and the patient. The fix me boom is a bleed out of subtle victimhood. It has no end in sight.
You pick a guru
He tells you what to do
You do it
The instruction doesn’t work
You go back to the guru
The guru says to do it for longer with more vigour (you think you’re doing something wrong)
You do it for a long time with no success
You go back to the guru
He says to try something else
You do it
The instruction doesn’t work
You go back to the guru
And on and on…
Take this elementary example into all of the ‘methodology’ based industries — anything with a ‘how to’ prescription.
The Devoted
People devoted to their craft, who are very few and far between, do not need any processes. They are the becoming of the thing itself. A living truth.
This is beyond competition, and it’s beyond any concept.
You cannot fail; it’s irrelevant whether it’ll kill you in the process. Your life is an example of your inner nature, and the authentic desire you’re becoming is its own field.
It does not require anything external, so mental cages such as others’ opinions are irrelevant.
Sport is a good example. I’m not talking about a lot of practice here; I’m talking about devotion to mastery. Devoted elite athletes do not worry about others, including their so-called competitors. Their self-mastery takes centre stage and diminishes anything of less importance.
A devoted man does not seek a method or process. A superficial man does.
Why? Because with genuine devotion, a man cannot fail. He is the thing itself. A superficial man can afford to fail and does.