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I came across the 8 legged essay on wikipedia some time back and have been wanting to try my hand at it. My topic is Wu Wei. I'm not exactly some expert on Wu Wei, sometimes struggling greatly to understand the context in which it is oftentimes used, but I thought I'd have a go of putting down some of my ideas on it. The essay, like the thread title suggests, is really kind of 'dirty' (and short!). I could have spent more time trying to understand how the essay is supposed to be composed (and lengthening the thing to provide more entertainment and or depth), but I learnt a lot trying to write it. If I find a better description than wikipedia offers, or come across examples of 8 legged essays elsewhere that show the form how it's supposed to be, i'm sure I'll be looking at them with an eye to improve my understanding. With all of it's various problems intact; here it is. ------ WuWei is the maintenance of what is easy with the understanding that once one should have to disagree with a course of action, it could prove difficult afterwards. Maintenance is also the servicing of what one has --and not anything one doesn't have. "(It is the way of the Tao) to act without (thinking of) acting; to conduct affairs without (feeling the) trouble of them; to taste without discerning any flavour; to consider what is small as great, and a few as many; and to recompense injury with kindness." From <http://sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm> Agreeing with the course of another's behaviour seems easy to believe in; that another person's business is their own, and on that account to be considered of little trouble, marks the one who makes light of misgiving. Terror, or the great dread that one day one's own business should prove difficult seems of little account also. Honesty is as an honest person does and so earnestness can be forgotten about just as easily as one is distracted by new gossip or interesting tidbits on buzzfeed. To agree that a given course would always be easy is to fail to inspect it on its merits. To agree that a thing has merit, yet no possibility of demerit, is to fail to be in wonder about how it achieves merit. Disagreeing about the merit or demerit oneself may or may not have might be the clue. Disagreeing that one should always find ease in one's own activity is where earnestness and honesty may meet. Accepting that others also may find difficulty or ease depending on their honesty and earnestness is the chief capacity of wonder. Wonder, however, is not on its own merely wanting to believe. Here is a central question: if I were to gift you something of great worth, could you come about another of its kind without any difficulty? If giving is easy, is great worth always difficult? Would the gift I gave you still be worth anything if you could easily take it for yourself from elsewhere? Honesty in light of what one already has is sure to be easy and bring no discomfort; wonder at another's act of giving to you neither should deprive you of anything. If all I had to be was honest, how would I treat a gift of little worth that was still very much given in earnest? WuWei, is about obeying -- while not pandering and without misgiving -- the value of ease and satisfaction. Wu Wei is how things come from being tiny and insignificant, with their roots in the distant past, to how they yet come easily to be in the present. This is the chief wonder of WuWei, and the foundation upon which we come to accept anything that is hard. Having while not valuing is not having at all. Valuing without acceptance is to not believe in value and thus never preserve it. To act outside WuWei is to place oneself into the burdensome position of not being able to accept anything.