Daniele Bolelli and Rich Evirs speaking with Robert Greene about ’The Way'
Robert: …That concept of ‘the way’ that permeates the universe and that you’re understanding it, either as a manual laborer - which is something really fascinating about Asian cultures where they celebrate manual labor in that sense. You know, in Japanese culture, in Zen Buddhism. A calligrapher, or a tea ceremony or anything - the ability to make something really well is a spiritual thing. You are kind of one with the material, is something we really miss. And I very much want to bring that back in this book.
Daniele: Absolutely, cause that’s ultimately what being in a state of flow, is. Where you have mastered a field enough, but not just mastered as you put through measurable intelligence. You know, 'i’ve gone through all the steps now I am a master’ - well that’s, you have a lot of knowledge and that’s great but then there is that step more, the mastery level, when you are in the state of flow where it looks like magic.
Robert: Yes
Daniele: You can pull off things that someone else looks at it and is like; how is it freaking possible that, in the case of that guy, he can use the same knife to go through a zillion oxen and cut them all up and butcher them without ever dulling the blade, is because he has this intuitive feeling not to hit any of the bones, where everything is, so he’s going through empty space.
Robert: Yea
Daniele: And he can’t really teach it to somebody else because it’s experience, it’s feel. It’s not like; ‘well first you go 30 degrees, then you curve’. It doesn’t work that way. And that’s, as you put it, in Eastern culture, there’s this idea that you can achieve that through any activity. You can do it through tea ceremony, you can do it through strategy, you can do it through [martial arts], you can do it through every single art there is in the world…is but a vehicle to get that. I mean it’s an Art, its great in itself there’s something cool about that field. But that’s why to me i’m much more interested about - I don’t care whether somebody is into, in what they are into, in the specifics. Or the particular art form they are into - or it may not even be an art form in most peoples opinion - the filed they are into or whatever. I’m interested in how they take that one little field and they are able to use that to channel this ability this energy in a way that transcends specific narrow field knowledge. That’s where you have a mastery of life at that point.