[The World on the Page] True Happiness Lies in Wu-wei

Neoliberalism Drives Us into Endless Competition
Awareness of Life Only Through Work and Achievement
Wu-wei: Enjoying Without Forcing
Different from Laziness or Lethargy

The year is coming to an end. The word ‘already’ suddenly feels tangible on the skin. It is like the early winter wind?sharp and stinging. Of course, there hasn’t been a day without busyness or without living earnestly. Yet, when I suddenly look back, it feels as if time has slipped away without accumulating, vanishing completely. It is just a hollow feeling, as if a year of life has been stolen.

Living passionately and frantically does not necessarily mean everything is fine. A life that does not lead to fulfilling pride, a life that leaves no solid memories, shrinks into mere survival without the face of humanity, reduced to a bare, animalistic existence. The struggle to make a living deserves respect, but when obsession is limited to that alone, life becomes nothing. It degenerates into blindness, emptiness, and nothingness.

In A Life of Contemplation (Kim Young-sa), philosopher Byung-Chul Han fiercely criticizes the modern life addicted to labor and action. The busier we work, the more achievements we make, and the more we consume, the more we tend to feel alive. This is because we perceive life only through work and results. At the core lies the neoliberal society that encourages and pressures infinite competition for performance improvement.

In this society, "activity completely absorbs human existence." If work slips from our hands even for a moment, we feel as if we have become corpses and tremble with anxiety. Because of this, "we voluntarily exploit ourselves." Now, the meaning of life transforms into self-developmental achievement. Developing greater capabilities and possessing more skills to accomplish the maximum amount of work becomes proof of self-esteem. Work is supposed to be for life, but a reversal of values occurs where life seems to exist for work.

The obsession with action and fixation on results deprive life of rest. Stopping and resting outside of labor and production feel like wasting life. We cannot endure a moment of life without activity. However, a life chased by "worries for survival," a life that is "just life," is not life but merely suffering. Only slaves work without rest. A life packed tightly with a flawless schedule is nothing but barbarism. Humans living without rest are no different from machines that "operate" without stopping.

The wheel of action, no matter how hard it spins, does not lead us to a good life. It lacks the fundamental meaning that fills existence. This is why the busier and more fervently we live, the more hollow our hearts feel. A life addicted to action ultimately exhausts our very being. We need a different life. A life of wu-wei (無爲).

Wu-wei has two meanings: ‘doing nothing’ and ‘not forcing.’ By doing nothing and resting, we free ourselves from the compulsion to do more. By not forcing, we can stop focusing only on intentional or purposeful activities. Therefore, "wu-wei is like a spiritual fast." Fasting revives our taste buds, allowing us to sense mysterious flavors even in trivial food. Similarly, wu-wei restores vitality and intensity to a life tired of action. It liberates us from the monotonous and bland wheel of a performance-oriented life.

Wu-wei is not a "gap in activity," laziness, or lethargy. Wu-wei is a specific form of action. Zhuangzi compared wu-wei to the chef Pao Ting’s knife work?acting effortlessly along the grain, following the natural flow. Heidegger called wu-wei ‘letting be.’ It is "an act that utilizes possibilities without forcing the impossible." It means enjoying everything possible without forcing. It is perfect freedom and infinite happiness.

Byung-Chul Han says wu-wei is "the most intense form of life." Just as language gains power through silence, and sound becomes music through stillness, only activity "free from purpose and utility" gives action meaning. Action without wu-wei is blind movement. True happiness lies not in purposeful and utilitarian activity but "in the unproductive, the detours, the deviations, the surplus, the beautiful gestures that are useless for anything."

In the short story On the Puppet Show, Heinrich von Kleist emphasizes the relationship between wu-wei and action through a dancer. In this work, the moment the dancer becomes conscious of the movement, the action loses its elegance. When purpose takes precedence, beauty evaporates. The dance loses its dance-ness. Therefore, "the master frees the will through practice." Just as a master chef cooks beef along the grain of muscles and bones, a true dancer naturally moves hands and feet to create elegant dance lines. "Action is perfected in wu-wei."

Life is no different. The God of the Old Testament created the world in six days and completed it by resting on the seventh day. "Rest is the essential core of creation. The Sabbath bestows divine grandeur on creation. Without rest, humans lose the divine." When we have not yet reached rest, our lives remain in chaos. Only when we reach the time of wu-wei can we discover the beauty and depth of life. "And it was good to see."

Wu-wei also makes us creative. Action merely repeats the same things according to predetermined purposes or utility. Nothing new can emerge within it. Like a child looking at the world, without purpose, naturally wandering here and there, we see "something different, something that never existed before." "Wu-wei initiates us into the secrets of life."

The gaze that sees the world within wu-wei is called contemplation. Modern people, having abandoned contemplation and immersed themselves in action, have lost inner peace and happiness as well. Menander sang, "The happiest person among all is the one who calmly observes the grandeur of this world: the shining sun, stars, sea, drifting clouds, and the brilliance of fire." Without contemplation, life cannot be fully enjoyed.

According to Aquinas, the life of action must aim toward the life of contemplation. The contemplative life is "the ultimate goal of human life," promising "divine self-sufficiency and perfect happiness." It is time to look back on the year. It is time to contemplate life within the time of wu-wei. So that life does not lose meaning and value, and existence does not have the roots of happiness taken away.

Jang Eun-su, Publishing Culture Critic