How to achieve “Mastery” (in whatever- let alone in these ‘arts’)- 2 Books that would profit being read (studied)

[Anonymous]

Mastery… as a subject, what is it.. how achieve it? — two books (by that title) – I recommend reading (buying- then rereading and outlining.. and not Allowing the shallow view of what is in it.. can what is presented in either, or both of these help what you want to acheive? either MartialArts, Energy work, Meditation-Taoism.. or else…. ?)

Who do you listen to? (which path to take? -what should I do.. or more so, ‘how’ do I do it? style.. method)

These 2 books– below are two links for each (3 videos on YT, and one pdf.. I”m not sure if it promo, for the book, or outline for a talk-lecture…. I’m not sure what the rights of it is – hopefully just open-public domain?)

Anyway- available if anyone wants to look into (thus at least the 4 links to freely avail– and then the 2 books to get, if you can.. and then work through).
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The two books (and points) below:

* Greene’s is more detailed in terms of examples, and showing different styles…

* Leonard’s is a classic from a few yrs back- often it is over-simplified by others, what is in his book has a view shown by Plateaus, and jumps.. and how both are seen differently- which one is “progress” vs being stuck.. and yet being “stuck” is actually building the foundation..

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Robert Greene (original pub: Nov 2012)
~18mins TEDxBrixton (TED talks are some good stuff)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLt_yDvdeLQ
edit- thus URL was corrected- as was duplicate of below before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sYmQFPXmJA ~52mins ‘Oxford Address’

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George Leonard (original pub: 1991)
https://www.thecorporaterookie.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mastery.pdf

~57 mins full free movie on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWxts-QMuXA
Mastery Keys (of anything) using Aikido at times… as well as Acting, Career, etc…

[Anonymous]

To an embellishment upon the above (don’t let my mentioning below make above seem too much- Id recommend either one, or both, above.. and then if you can.. the below….

In relation to “Trial and Error” (seeking Trial and Success)… Randomness, and DisCovery (literally Un-covering, Revealing..)

In relation to the idea of paths of discovery…. which end up working? -out of a thousand (or 100K…) a few succeed.. so we, as a culture, track them back see what they did (recalled, reconstructed) as a how-to.. as if it could have been seen from the start (not needing the many others didn’t trickled into dead-ends or just ceased due to lack of pos. fdbk.. often the idea is ‘Just keep going…” and yet if going the “wrong way”.. and yet we ‘cannot’ label it the wrong way (nor that one “Could have” or “couldn’t have” done xyz.. only– that you Did or Did Not… not might have.. just did or didn’t.. sortof Yoda)..

Anyway- much more eloquent in the below.. I’d recommend these texts, espec the first two (so with the other two, both called Mastery, that’s 4, or 5, books.. along with whatever specifics.. like Bruce’s Opening the E Gates.. Not a huge reading list- but a foundational Circuluum? to develop a CV upon?
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author Nassim Nicholas Taleb

* Antifragile: Things that gain from Disorder (original pub: Nov 2012)

* Black Swan (original pub: 2007)
* Fooled by Randomness (original pub: 2001)

[Anonymous]

You want Mastery. Of what? To achieve what? What exactly is your Dream? Let’s narrow it down: you want to Master Martial Arts. A method, a style. What are Martial Arts for? What is the Ultimate Goal?
Further on, what is your relationship with your own Ego and the Other Ego’s? Do you love them? Do they judge you, or are you judging them?

I think the Mastery starts exactly where it also ends: with the Mastery of Love. Try this one: do the 18, the 24, the 48, whatever, fully concentrated on the fact that Qi is generated in the Love Field of the Lower Dantien, and that is a Flux of Love you send and use. How does it feel? That’s an interesting way, a Lovely Path you got there, isn’t it? By becoming a Master, you will get Wings. In Martial Arts, sure, but much more than that. I wish it to you wholeheartedly.

[Anonymous]

Here’s a pretty good article on the Mastery of Love.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/06/30/leo-buscaglia-love-2/

It feels right, that love is learned, “a dynamic ability to be mastered and cultivated” rather than “a static state to be passively beheld”. I’m with you Ludos, Mastery of Love is definitely the way to go!

[Anonymous]

Another good article on mastery:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/10/sarah-lewis-the-rise-failure/

[Anonymous]

Interesting finds Cody.. I’m glad bringing up the concept-thread sparked someone (as its been a focus of mine for so long- what does “learning how-to learn” really mean…. being the sound-nice/makes-sense colloquialisms of our pop-culture.
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[ I appreciate the responses by both Cody and Ludo.. I wonder if any others find this a valuable subject..]
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[ the forum’s discussion stopped a while ago, even with all the cert-instructors out there, likely the way responses to their input was done by questioners. Anyway, this just may attempt to give back to this system-site. ]

A problem I have with most texts on this, which read well and digest easily and then fade-away.. is oft that reference, to succeed is to not stop until you do (sounds nice, and yet tautologically useless- ie circular-definition.. after you filter out those that didn’t reach an end.. those are lost.. thus my recommendation of N. N. Taleb’s books)

ex in the Lewis article, the Fitzgerald quote, failure is nothing to fear “Unless it is your fault” (?) [oft the usual, “but be reasonable” is thrown in, as the disproportionate rewards to some developments, vs diminishing returns of others.. or as a teacher quoted once “Prospecting don’t pay.” .. once you have “success” (financially and social-position) then push the envelope of what is possible, to get started you need follow a path figured our — assuming you are steered off a cliff (Who do you listen to? What/how spend your time)

or have multi-thousands “try” and only those that had enough initial success, and reinforcing resources.. as well as found the “hints” needed (some of that is chance, but what are the important tweaks? that is the question)… only those that “kept with it’ are heard of (but “low-hanging fruit”? and self-selection.. we never hear about all those “others” -from that initial multi-thousands.. and yet we are told: anyone could have done it, if ‘only they had stuck-to-it-ness.. grit, etc.

That could be misleading (and for a social-system where most see those that “dug in their claim” and found gold (ie propecting).. and we think those that didn’t find just stopped to soon.. maybe, maybe yrs spent doing “Mechanical ChiGung” (taichi Chuan is just an issue of positioning.. or perhaps it is all in your head.. or… just like “chemistry” there are strict protocols and recipes.. else just drive off the road. (even if “someone could find out on accident” most dont?)
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Just as an aside- originally the post was going to give the title of the book/author, but I figured most wouldn’t go to acquire and dive in to reading-study a text.. so I tagged-back the links to videos and only URL I found a while back
(perhaps ironic in terms of Mastery, but only worth going beyond the Cliff-notes summary of a book that has more depth.. many books can be reduced to a few pts, and miss little.. but a few only cursorily can be summed-up..)

the Value (and Devil oft can be in the details. (just which details:)
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-the later two (of the below three) might require working-through but points out how often those “at the end of their journey” are seen (and we assume we could know where that is going from the start).. vs the ‘randomness’ and non-linear fdbk process….

^^ So thus 3 titles (and an added fourth) recommended^^

Thus just I’d recommend, Greene R.’s Mastery, and Taleb N’s Black Swan and Antifragile — in case anyone does want to track down.

(and just to finish this thought-thread, as felt I’d add the above, and finally propose another text-
Finite and Infinite Games by James P Carse 1986)

best of luck to whoever might read this post (and these books) now, or whenever in the future- cheers
luck all

[Anonymous]

Thanks for more sources, Taokua.
I know that articles from sites like brainpickings can seem to fade away all too quickly but isn’t that part of the forgetting-and-remembering/relearning cycle that Bruce talks about (i.e. you learn it, and then forget it, and then learn it all over again)?
With this type of stuff, I think it forgets so easily as a virtue. If you’re looking for staying power you have to read between the lines; not look at it as bits of information or instruction but rather a kind of written transmission in which the picture or instruction is in the poetry that the words induce.
In this way “failure is nothing to fear unless it’s your fault” isn’t necessarily instructive. It reads this way at a different level of thought but doesn’t really carry a firm correction to it but something that meanders you in the way of correction, so that you can discover it for yourself (so that you can continue to fail and make mistakes in this constructive manner).
I’m all for persons who give how-to information and it is extremely helpful and necessary, however, in the vein of mastery, I think there’s something to be said about those that don’t give you directions to your destination but a compass and a map. A bit of the saying of teach a man to fish vs. give him a fish. Though, I’d argue, depending at where you are on the journey, getting a fish is going to be more important than simply knowing how to fish (i.e. no bodies of water/fishing a body of water with fish that have poisonous levels of mercury/etc.). So, I’m not saying one is better than the other eternally, it just depends on what resonates with your inherent need at any given moment. I am stressing, though, the importance of being too proud to accept a fish or too simple to learn how to fish; putting yourself off of either one can be, I feel, detrimental to any real aspiration of mastery.

Here’s another article from brainpickings with Nietzsche and his take on self-mastery:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/10/15/nietzsche-free-spirits/

I especially like the quote at the end of the article by Rilke “the future enters into us … in order to transform itself in us long before it happens,” it sounds like the causal body.

[Author]

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