Trying Not to Try by Edward Slingerland

Though marketed as broad Gladwell-ish pop psychology – with some self-help thrown in – Trying Not to Try is actually a lot narrower and deeper than that. It's largely an introduction to two intertwined concepts of Chinese philosophy – wu wei and de – and how they (Slingerland argues) provide neuroscientifically sound answers to the perennial problem of how to live.

Wu wei resists simple definition: it's effortless action, cultivated thoughtlessness, unselfconscious spontaneity; it's 'going with the flow,' 'being in the zone'; it's also close to Freud's id and dual process theory's System 1. And de, a by-product of wu wei, is a kind of 'moral charisma,' a virtuousness that's also profoundly attractive to others.

Admittedly, such a summary does these concepts a disservice. They're tricky and protean, and for an adequate explanation of them, Slingerland deems it necessary to examine the views of four different schools of Chinese philosophy: those of Confucius, Laozi, Mencius and Zhuangzi.

As the basis for a workable philosophy of life, I'm not quite sold on wu wei and de. Nevertheless, Slingerland's book is valuable and refreshing; it illuminates traditions unfairly overlooked in the West, and does so in a way that's clear-eyed, amenable to science, and largely free of the facile relativism that often mars Western accounts of Eastern philosophy. [Kristian Doyle]