Among other extracurricular pursuits this past summer, Jack learned how to wakeboard. There is still much to work on in the finesse department, but the essential elements were confirmed. (Next summer’s focus: Catching big air.)

Jack hypothesized, correctly, that his ample snowboarding experience would translate to a natural feel for the sport. Riding a wakeboard, it turns out, is a bit like snowboarding in deep powder. You keep a low center of gravity, use your hips like a fulcrum, and steer with a firmly planted back leg. Looking where you want to go (rather than looking down) and being intimately aware of heelside / toeside edge position at all times completes the checklist.

There is at least one major difference between wakeboarding and snowboarding, though. It has to do with starting out.

On a snowboard, one begins in the upright position and simply scootches forward. The experience is mild and relatively controlled. All one need do is yield to the gentle pull of gravity, and the mountain takes care of the rest.

With a wakeboard, in contrast, starting off is a bit trickier. To “get up” on a wakeboard, you begin more or less floating on your (life-jacketed) back, toes sticking up out of the water, board halfway submerged with feet strapped in the bindings.

Gripping the tow rope with both hands, the standard procedure is then to yell “Hit It!” – and a split second later the boat driver does just that. The wakeboarder then finds him(or her)self immersed in pressing negotiations with 1) a 315-horsepower ski boat tearing forward in a roar, and 2) thousands of pounds of water pressure per square inch, bearing down on the flat surface of the board.

Given those complications – not to mention the sensation of being pulled with overwhelming, almost violent force – not everyone pops right up with ease. Some individuals require multiple sessions, or even multiple seasons, to master the art of getting up on a wakeboard.

The struggle often comes down to a tendency known as “fighting the water.”

Fighting the water involves an improper use of muscles and a failure to coordinate the right movements. Getting up on a wakeboard turns out to be a matter of technique, not strength. With the proper technique, a 105-pound girl can get up easily with no stress or strain. With the wrong technique, a 220-pound NFL running back with five percent body fat will do nothing but exhaust himself (and possibly blister his hands or wrench a shoulder in the process).

It would seem obvious that wrestling a 315-horsepower ski boat (and attempting to defy a rushing wall of lake water) is a losing proposition. But it is only obvious on the surface level, to the thinking conscious mind, that “fighting the water” is wrong. The body still has to intuitively grasp and internalize the correct technique before this tendency can be overcome.

There are also different methods, or schools of thought, for getting up on the board. The most popular method, which one can find taught in a wide variety of instructional videos, does not work for everyone. Much of it comes down to “feel” and personal preference. Everyone’s body (physical profile) is a little bit different; everyone’s sense of what feels right in the water is a little bit different also. These differences matter.

As a new wakeboarder, how do you know if you’re fighting the water? It’s fairly easy to tell. The act of getting up becomes a short, violent struggle – and a failed one at that. Muscles are tensed to the point of discomfort (and later soreness). As the piece de resistance, the tow rope is yanked mercilessly from one’s grip as the lake morphs into a concrete wall.

Getting up properly, on the other hand, is like springing up out of an overstuffed arm chair. It feels natural: No socket-wrenching yank, no burning of the hands, no undue tensing of the muscles. Rather than acting as a barrier to forward movement, the water rushes cooperatively under the wakeboard as the body comes up and over. The wakeboarder is lifted to the surface in one fluid, coordinated movement, as if by eager hands hoisting up a crowd surfer at a concert.

Right Thought, Right Action

As a working metaphor, the wakeboard discussion dovetails into “Right Thought, Right Action” – a vital metaprocess concept of Jack’s own invention.

It should first be noted that “Right Thought, Right Action” is inspired by – but not constrained by! – the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path.

To quickly recap, the Noble Eightfold Path offers eight separate “Rights:”

Right View Right Intention Right Speech Right Action Right Livelihood Right Effort Right Mindfulness Right Concentration

Within these “Rights” – not like “right to bear arms,” but as in “the right thing to do” a la Wilfred Brimley – the Noble Eightfold Path serves up a laundry list of moral do’s and don’ts (mostly don’ts): Abstain from taking life, abstain from illicit sex, abstain from trading in weapons or intoxicants, and so on.

Being something of a happy-go-lucky libertine, Jack finds such moral prescriptions tiresome. The wagging finger is obnoxious, even when said finger is Buddha’s. Who is Jack (or the Buddha for that matter) to say that drunken fornicating arms dealers can’t find fulfillment in this life? But anyway…

What Jack wholly agrees with, in terms of Eightfold Path inspiration, is the straightforward, bread and butter notion that “action produces a result.”

In other words: If you put your hand on a hot stove, you will get burned. If you jump off a cliff and flap your arms in the mistaken belief you can fly, gravity will beg to differ. And if you try to “fight the water” as the ski boat takes off, your wakeboarding experience will consist of little more than cramped calves, strained shoulders and blistered hands.

So the observation that “action produces a result” can be further expanded on like so:

“Right” action produces the “right” result. “Wrong” action produces the “wrong” result.

Definitely not rocket science. But important nonetheless. Whereas the Noble Eightfold Path speaks of “right” in terms of moral correctness, Jack speaks of “right” in terms of intention being aligned with outcome.

The power of Right Thought, Right Action – and its usefulness as a pragmatic metaphysical concept – thus comes in the natural alignment of knowledge and desire. These things have to be aligned to get the “right” result (with “right” defined here by whatever your criteria determines it to be).

Let’s go back to the wakeboard analogy again. If one is floating behind the boat, waiting to yell “Hit it!” in the hopes of carving the wake, obviously the desire to get up is there.

But that desire has to be coupled with correct knowledge – a correct perception in the kinesthetic if not conceptual sense – as to the proper means of getting up. (It is quite common, by the way, for the body to know things that the conscious mind does not.)

Note, again, how getting up on a wakeboard feels when the proper technique is used. The feeling is natural. There is no strain or struggle. So, too, with Right Thought, Right Action when knowledge and desire are properly aligned.

Like Drinking a Glass of Water

To further explore the Right Thought, Right Action concept… imagine you are sitting in your favorite chair, reading a favorite magazine or book, when suddenly you realize you are very thirsty. You look over and see a tall, cool, refreshing glass of water sitting near your elbow.

Thirsty as you are, how hard is it to reach for that glass of water? How hard is it to lift to your lips and drink it?

That ease of accomplishment is what Right Thought, Right Action feels like in practice. When you know what to do – how to coordinate the movements – and you also possess the desire to do it, any sequence of required actions can be that easy.

Back to getting up on the wakeboard again… or something more people may be familiar with, like automatically stepping on the clutch when shifting gears in a manual transmission car. These actions are fluid, effortless even, because both knowledge and desire are there. What’s more, such actions are matters of technique, not physical struggle or strain.

RTRA in Daily Life

The true power of Right Thought, Right Action, though, is how useful it can be in daily life…

For instance, how many times have you struggled with some task that you didn’t want to do? Some chore that seemed off-putting or some challenge that seemed frightening?

We can utilize RTRA (which Jack will mostly abbreviate from here on out) as an analytical tool whenever struggle or strain arises in daily life.

Often, when struggle or strain arises, one of two things is missing: either the desire is insufficient, or the knowledge (be it kinesthetic, conceptual, or something else) is incorrect or incomplete.

Consider that old debate with your brain as the alarm clock goes off: Do I really have to get up now? Can’t I sleep a little more? I could sleep another thirty minutes… in examples like this one, desire is not sufficient to apply RTRA. There is an internal conflict between what one part of your mind / body wants (to get up) and what another part of your mind / body wants (to go back to sleep). Instances of insufficient desire are often born of indecision, and the only way to resolve this conflict is to align motivation and realization within the self.

In another instance, the desire may be strong but the knowledge may be lacking. Imagine, for example, seeing an incredibly attractive person at a party and feeling a strong, almost overwhelming, desire to chat them up – yet simultaneously feeling paralyzed. Without knowledge and technique – a natural familiarity with social dynamics, an ability to engage in witty conversation born of practice or natural knack, and an ability to manage emotions and confidence levels on an internal basis – that desire will go nowhere, imprisoned by a lack of technique.

So RTRA, in some ways, is about the intelligent matching up of knowledge and desire. When both are present and sufficient, technique becomes fluid and effort becomes effortless.

Even “hard’ or “unpleasant” tasks can become easy – or at least easier – when they are approached in the context of forethought cultivating desire: I really wish I could sleep some more but I understand the trade-offs involved, and I know my day will go more smoothly if I get up right now. Therefore, my desire is to reap dividends for my future self by exercising discipline in the present moment. And thus my unconflicted desire is to get up, and so I do…

It is quite amazing, really, how far one can take RTRA in terms of logical analysis fueling present moment desire in such a way that truly ugly tasks – things far harder than just getting out of bed – become “easy” to do.

Negotiation and Discovery

The RTRA concept – matching up knowledge and desire – also works as a discovery process. Whenever there is strain or struggle, the RTRA practitioner can ask, “What is the problem here? Is it insufficient knowledge or insufficient desire?”

If the trouble is pegged as being in the desire department, an internal discussion ensues. Perspectives are worked out in such a way that the skeptical part of the self becomes “convinced” and the conflicted desire is either confirmed or dropped.

If the trouble is pegged as knowledge, though, a different type of discussion ensues. Hmm. Clearly my knowledge / technique is insufficient in terms of getting up on a wakeboard / meeting people in social settings / cooking a soufflé or what have you. The question is, how badly do I want to attain this knowledge? What type of opportunity cost and personal time / energy commitments are we talking about here?

By regularly applying the RTRA concept (as Jack does subconsciously now), one also gets the side benefit of constantly re-assessing desires and skill sets with an eye for living the best life. “What do I desire?” is a very important question. “What area of understanding do I wish to cultivate next / cultivate further?” is another very important question. You cannot make a habit of implementing RTRA consistently without more or less asking these two questions on a regular basis.

And, as a powerful side benefit of asking these questions on a regular basis, one can discover virtuous feedback loops within RTRA in terms of deeper knowledge cultivating deeper levels of desire and vice versa. The better one understands one’s motivation (desire), the better one is emotionally and psychologically prepped to go out and absorb fresh knowledge. The more full and rich the depth of one’s knowledge, the more that a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment gets channeled into existing pathways of desire… and so on.

So Simple, Yet So Overlooked

The RTRA concept is so simple… right thought produces right action with undue strain or struggle, as a result of properly aligned desire and knowledge.

And yet, everywhere you look, people seem to be struggling like hell with one side of the equation or the other.

They are constantly pushing themselves to do things without fully working out the motivation as to why they are doing them… either pursuing goals and pursuits that don’t really fulfill them, or else letting their psyches get weighed down by the baggage of unresolved doubt. As a result, life feels like a giant struggle more than half the time.

And then, on the knowledge / technique side, you see individuals “fighting the water” of life constantly… trying to muscle their way through subtle situations, struggling and straining unduly, ignoring their horrible technique and pretending their insufficient knowledge is sufficient.

Hard-Working Lazy Bastard

In some ways, Jack works a damn sight harder than your average bear. He puts in strenuous workouts six days a week, consumes ridiculous quantities of information on a daily basis, trades a wide variety of financial markets, writes like a man possessed, makes quality time for loved ones, and, of course, finds time for physical excursions like wakeboarding as referenced here.

And yet, in many ways, in spite of all that, Jack is a bit of a lazy bastard. It is his desire to mentally relax and de-stress, to regularly indulge in that “drinking a glass of water” feeling, even while pursuing a host of traditionally “stressful” activities, that has led Jack to a life path very much driven by Right Thought, Right Action.

For instance, many of the things Jack does on a routine basis – actions that would no doubt be perceived by the masses as “hard” were such actions to be categorized – are instead perceived and experienced by Jack as effortless or close to it, like drinking that glass of water again… even when significant amounts of physical and emotional energy are expended!

This is in part because fatigue is more a mental concept than a physical one — introduced more by internal conflict than straightforward exertion. (It can feel quite good to fatigue the muscles, for instance – even to the point of near exhaustion – but that’s a different discussion.)

It’s also because, when one starts getting more adept at RTRA – deliberately aligning knowledge and desire wherever possible, both inside and out – life really does become less of a struggle! One can think of this from a simple engineering perspective. To accomplish a set of activities with less mental and emotional strain means lower energy expenditure, which in turn frees up more energy for being creative, adding enjoyable pursuits or getting more done, etc., in a sustainable virtuous cycle.

We expend so much energy on unresolved low-grade conflicts, allowed to flicker and burn like shorted power-circuits in our heads… and barring that, we waste so much time trying to “muscle through” various elements of life where small improvements in technique could reap huge dividends… it’s really an unfortunate thing, and a needlessly wasteful thing to the degree that wrong thought, wrong action leads to frustration, stagnation and failure.

Like learning to coordinate one’s movements and pop up effortlessly on the wakeboard, RTRA is the logical response to all that struggle. Also as with wakeboarding, finding that effortless place, even if it takes multiple sessions or seasons, is almost always worth it. And best of all, RTRA offers a means of becoming one of those lazy, “lucky” types who appear to be enjoying life immensely while not trying all that hard. They could be giving their all and you wouldn’t see strain because, as with proper wakeboard technique, when RTRA is applied fully the struggle is no longer there.

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