“Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

 

In the philosophy of Taoism the goal of life is bring yourself in accord with the Tao, to live in harmony with nature, rather than forcing it around. Nature is spontaneous and acts without conscious will or control. Just as our hearts beat, eyes blink, and lungs breath without conscious attention, so does our mind know. 

 

Almost everyone is aware of the fact that there is an unconscious and conscious aspect of themselves. That is to say there is a differentiation between the us that breaths, beats, and blinks, and the us that decides, thinks, and acts. In his book "Become Who You Are,” Zen philosopher Alan Watts explains,

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“To the degree that we feel this division, we are always trying to control and understand and dominate our subconscious self with our conscious and willful self. But in Lao-tzu’s philosophy, this is quite literally to be all balled up, to be in a desperate and utterly frustrating condition of self-strangulation, falling over one’s own feet, and perpetually getting in one's own way; which is, of course, not Tao, the Way of Nature”. 

 

Lao-Tzu never defined what the Tao actually is, because the Tao is ultimately unknowable; anything imaginable, conceptual, or desirable is not the Tao. So, if the Tao is unknowable how can we bring ourselves in accord with it? By doing absolutely nothing. 

 

This certain kind of doing nothing, is not deliberate relaxation, or a sort of despondency, but what Lao-Tzu calls wu-wei, which translates to nondoing or nonstriving. As paradoxical as it may seem, the goal of Taosim is not seeking any result.  That is to say we do not know what the goal ought to be.