I recently encountered the philosophy of 'Do easy' in an ultraculture.com article by Jason Louv on William S. Burroughs. From the article: "Burroughs’ most tried and tested technique was the practice of “Do Easy” or “Doing Easy”—that is, re-training your brain to do everything in the fewest number of steps. As Burroughs put it, “[Doing Easy] simply means doing whatever you do in the easiest most relaxed way you can manage which is also the quickest and most efficient way.” If that sounds overly simplistic, good."
It's explained most easily in this video by Gus Van Sant here:
I've always been a pretty lazy guy and in the lower end percentile of contentiousness as shown in a test I took showed in my previous entry (link). The thing about Doing Easy is that it changes your relationship with work or chores. Instead of them being painful activities that require all the effort in the world they become experiments which one tries to perfect. It forces you to put all your attention to the present moment. It reminds me so much of jiujitsu drilling.
Any jiujitsu player worth their salt will tell you that in order to get good you need to drill. We have sayings like "Drill to win" or "Drillers are Killers." The people who really get good force themselves to drill even if its gets repetitive. We all want to spar because it's most fun. But now I understand how to keep myself invested with drilling with the 'Do Easy' philosophy. I want to do the movement as smooth as possible. Going with the flow. Trying to make movements as smooth as humanly possible.
nice
Reminds me of a roofing job I had. We were up there prying 4 layers of old shingles off, and since I wasn't officially employed, just helping a friend, I was like, I'm going to do this the smart, easy way that doesn't break my back.
So I sat down above the next row of shingles, so that I wouldn't be all stooped over at a 90*+ angle. I was way outpacing the guy I was working with since I had just made my job far easier. Well, I got a talking to since he thought I was just being lazy...until he saw that I was easily outworking the next guy. Then he was just butthurt because he'd been doing that work for a long time and apparently never figured out to sit down :)
Regardless of what people think, the proof is in the pudding. If I can take it easy and outpace the guy who's working too hard....who's silly in this situation?
Exactly. I've always thought of myself as lazy but I've always just tried to be efficient. Trying to get rid of my childhood indoctrination that hard work is the greatest good. Working smart is the they way to go. This concept of do easy just gives me a better framework.