WU WEI

Wu Wei - a concept I've been pondering to write about here for some days. And now that the time seems right, I realize the main thing about it is - I need to re-learn this in my own life! In my trading life, and in my personal life. Well ... that figures!

In my trading, I've been pushing it a little too hard. This became clear to me in two examples recently. One, in which I expected an upward movemenet out of a triangle that I posted about at my main trading site (UnbiasedTrading blogspot). I traded it mostly fine, but at one point I overtraded within the triangle, even though at that time I fully realized it was a triangle. Got whipsawed and didn't do as well as I should have. Still was able to take advantage of the Wednesday peak fortunately. My fault for overthinking the trade, as well as not respecting my current trading limitations (it's an avocation, and my day job needs to and does take precedence.)

Another when I have been viewing gold as being in a definite uptrend (also shown at my main site). I was happy when I saw a small head and shoulders pattern, and it dropped neatly to my lower channel trendline. At that point, I should have reverted to my big theory absent a break of that line. Instead, I got distracted with what others were saying about gold, and didn't have the confidence to go long again. Sure enough, gold bolted upward. I'm fortunate enough that I've been watching key levels that clued me in to pay attention to the rise, as well as cycles work by Mike Korell ("Merlin") and Tim Wood that have helped focus my thoughts more clearly back to the bigger scenario I think is working in gold.

As for the rest of my life ... well ... I do tend to overestimate my ability to devote enough time to all the myriad of activities I want to do and the other ones I need to do. Sounds like it IS time for me to revisit the wu wei principle. I'll trust that proceeding with a post about it, will help be a part of that.

Thanks to Wikipedia in its interesting wu wei entry (helping me get to completion on this today) for also including this related translation from the Tao Te Chingtranslation by Priya Hemenway:

3

The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.

Wu may be translated as not have or without. Wei may be translated as do, act, serve as, govern or effort. When I used to be a t'ai chi student, we were taught that it means "doing nothing" or "doing nothing extra." A sort of "doing it in a way that you're not doing it", or "doing it without extra effort." Allowing it to happen, guiding it to happen.

The literal meaning of wu wei is "without action". According to the Wikipedia entry, it's often included in the paradox wei wu wei: "action without action" or "effortless doing". It adds, "The practice of wu wei and the efficacy of wei wu wei are fundamental tenets in Chinese thought and have been mostly emphasized by the Taoist school. The aim of wu wei is to achieve a state of perfect equilibrium, or alignment with the Tao, and, as a result, obtain an irresistible form of "soft and invisible" power."

Apparently there are those who consider that wu wei means "natural action" - for example, as planets revolve around the sun, they "do" this revolving, but without "doing" it; or as trees grow, they "do", but without "doing". So, knowing when (and how) to act is not knowledge, as in the sense that one would think "now is the right time to do this", but rather just doing it, naturally.

I tend to think of it differently, more along the lines of the "action without effort" which does involve a certain awareness or conscious guidance. This doesn't mean having a knowledge or conscious thought that "oh, such and such must be done," but having an awareness of something to be done and allowing oneself to be involved without extra, awkward, or unnecessary effort in the doing of it. I'm guessing that it equates to the concept that many in sports and trading have, of "being in the flow".

The less commonly referenced sense of wu wei, according to the Wikipedia entry, sounds like what I learned in t'ai chi: "action that does not involve struggle or excessive effort". The article explains: "In this instance, Wu means "without" and Wei means "effort". The concept of "effortless action" is a part of Taoist Internal martial arts such as Tai chi, Baguazhang and Xing Yi."

Along these lines, here's more info neatly organized in the Wikipedia article that I'll go ahead and quote. Because it correlates the wu wei principle to the approach of water, which is so fundamental to the Taoist way:

In the original Taoist texts, wu wei is often associated with water and its yielding nature. Although water is soft and weak, it has the capacity to erode even solid stone (e.g., Grand Canyon) and move mountains (e.g., landslides). Water is without will (i.e., the will for a shape), though it may be understood to be opposing wood, stone, or any solid aggregated material that can be broken into pieces. Due to its nature and propensity, water may potentially fill any container, assume any shape; given the water cycle water may potentially go "anywhere", even into the minutest holes, both metaphorical and actual.

For myself, I think that trading as an activity will always involve some level of effort, but the take-away I'll have is to focus on what is the right effort. I've been fortunate enough to learn what signals, tools and indicators "work" for my trading style, for the most part. And so I've been able to some extent, to weed out other systems, etc., that don't work as well for me. I like the idea of cutting out the distractions and those things that don't work, allowing what does work to reveal itself. Then all I've got to do is allow those to guide my trading without overdoing it.