Future Chi
Episode 38: War & Chi - Lies, Truth, Conspiracy Theories, Virtue, Spiritual Power, and Becoming Invisible
The Episode
War, what is it good for? It looks and feels like things are getting worse by the day - death, destruction and despondency are out of control, and there's a seemingly daily effort to divide us by any and all means possible. With brewing wars, constant conflict, and global pain and suffering it’s easy to lose hope. How to we counteract this? How do we prevent war, cut through the lies and get to the truth?
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) the fundamental nature of life is good, but good things take time and reveal themselves slowly while bad things are amplified, sensationalised and spread quickly. In this episode, Jost and Leon talk about the origins of conflict, the ashes of war, and how to disrupt destructive trajectories (or avoid them entirely).
Jost talks in depth about his deeply personal experiences of post-war Germany, the destruction and depression that followed, and the emergence of a materialistic and mundane society. Jost’s search for meaning, truth, and transformation ultimately lead him to Chinese culture, martial arts, philosophy and medicine. Jost discusses the spiritual awakening that war can unlock for some and the anger and PTSD it causes for others. He also talks about the dangers of segregation, fear driven narratives and the rapid onset conformity of recent years that were all too close to home. Leon gets into toy soldiers, the shallowness of virtue signalling, the dismissiveness of pejoratives used to sideline critical thinkers, and the need to go deeper and transcend the ‘issues’ of the moment. Jost and Leon also talk superhuman fighters, the courage and bravery required to face ourselves, the spontaneity of true virtue and the difference between being told what is right versus really knowing.
The prevention of war is up to us. Now more than ever we need to do our practice, align with our own nature, and in doing so we will be good, do good, and become invisible to those who want to control us. The future needs us to work in the present, not live in the past.